Too Much Supply or Just Bad Distribution?

Lately, there's been buzz about farmers tossing out their crops, like tomatoes, which isn't exactly a new issue. This has been happening for years now. It's confusing for consumers since the prices of produce are sky-high, so how come there's supposedly an oversupply? The real issue is underdistribution. There's plenty of produce, but it's not getting to the right places where people can buy it. Instead, imports often take precedence in stores. And don’t get me started on middlemen who just hike up the prices. Just think how affordable groceries could be if the government actually focused on fixing this mess.

Logistics is always the problem for 3rd world countries like my country. I don’t know what country you are referring on your scenario but redistribution is indeed the main culprit why many produce doesn’t go to the market easily that creates a shortage on supply. Farmers choose to dump their produce rather than sell it in bargain when there’s no logistics available so that other opportunistic businessman don’t intentionally cut the logistics just to purchase in cheap price. Government should fund logistics from farm to market to bring lower cost of farm products.

A topic where? Bangladesh farmers weekly? Please understand that this is a global forum but you might be seeing highly localized news. This supply and demand dynamic is what underpins capitalism or even human trading since the beginning of time. Consumers are in no way confused, they understand that if you buy food from a restaurant then you might pay a 100x mark up for all the facilities and skills to bring that to your plate, but supermarket prices will have a much smaller margin built in if you buy raw products there. This constant reorganization of priorities and pricing requires farmers to alter what they plant in their fields each year, because there are also production costs which must be covered. If there are too many tomatoes this year, then you might find some farmers move into peas or beans. Unless the government is subsidizing a certain crop then it has absolutely nothing to do with them what farmers get for their product, just like you wouldn't expect the government to price what the next pair of Nike running shoes cost.

You described phenomena also often happen in my country, farmer throw away their harvesting fruit or vegeratble as a protest to government which is considered to have failed to protect the welfare of farmers. This is not only government fail but mostly because seasonal glut due to over supply which cause local supply shock. There are social movement which buy farmer's declining price harvesting supply, after they buy in reasonable and acceptable price, they share with community mostly in urban area.  Beside that, because of online market platform, farmer can sell directly to end user/customer with higher price than they sell to village collector. matter of fact online market platform cut long supply chain. Traditionally farmer sell to village collector which bring to large collector, after that they sell to urban distributor, bring to wholesale market, trader buy to sell to end user.

In the city where I lived, agricultural products such as cucumbers and tomatoes were also often destroyed, and I understood that this was done because they did not have time to sell them, and they would have further deteriorated on the way to supermarkets. They decided not to distribute them to people, so as not to bring down the prices of such products, but only quietly buried them in a pit, after which the governor found out about it and imposed fines on an enterprise that destroys agricultural products, which had spent a lot of effort instead of making the calculations correctly in advance.

Yeahhh All we need is the government to intervene, it's all cheap and...I was going to say plentiful but... Every single fucking time the government messed with the food chain, there has been a horror story - Communism in Europe, the government trying to make food cheap and abundant? Ratios of bread! - Communism in China? Mao trying to revitalize agriculture? 50 mllion death It happens in other countries too , like Spain.  Joking aside, it does happen even in Europe, but not dumping but simply not picking them up from the fields, it's not like it's a normal thing and in case of tomatoes it happens way more rarely than potatoes or cabbages which are cheap crops by the kilo and are also prone to overproduction in a good year. And yeah, you will not see them being dumped because the actual bottleneck price-wise is the harvesting.

yeah in the US and Europe crop pickers are not so cheap so letting the food rot in the fields happens from time to time.

The solution to our problem is to fix the minor issues in the country. Importing farm produce is costly when those products can be produced within the country. First, the citizens should learn to cherish what they can grow. Like, in my country, foreign products are more appreciated than local products because they do not value whatever is produced within the country. Once that mentality has changed, good roads and companies should be made for the goods to circulate.

Oversupply doesn't make the product too expensive because is usually something that is not in much cost on the market but however when is too costly is because the quantity they have been supplying is very small for everyone who wants it to buy so actually they would start selling it very high since they no that they could sell it at any price they want. In Tomatoes we have sufficient supply in my country and the price is something anybody can buy, although there are times it can also be a bit costly because of the season, there are season tomatoes are everywhere and nobody to buy but in some other season it will not be common.

This is an exact challenge facing some parts of my locality that are water surrounded which makes redistribution through logistics very difficult thereby impacting on supplying chain, causing shortage in supply. For the fewer goods that some marketers are capable of moving to these areas the prices are hiked from the normal price due to the extra cost of logistics to these locations which not every marketer dares to take their goods there, also due to insecurity on the waterways. In this interest and profit game it's the end users that bears the it eventually, because when the goods are dumped it causes high demand with low supply with unfair prices. Who are the businessmen and who are the governments (politicians)? Same people that shakes hands.

The farmers will choose to dump it without anyone benefiting it with cheaper cost. Because that's against their ego and I think they have the right to do that since from the planting to harvesting, it's all their efforts that have been put into it. And that's their choice if they chose to destroy their agri products due to the abuse of the middlemen and businessmen. Instead of them benefiting from their own products, it's them that are the ones who's suffering due to the manipulation of these people who are greedy and don't think of their welfare.

The question is how the government is able to cope with this. The government should not import in case of excess produce. In my view, therefore, it is not a matter of excessive supply or inadequate distribution. It is a mix of logistics control, trade policies, market structure and low price protection on the farmer level. Suppose it were actually targeted at enhancing warehouses and cold storage, effective distributions network, transparent prices and regulations on imports conducted in harmony with the harvesting schedule. Prices would be stabilized and consumers would not be paying very high prices. How about a food system that can be effectively managed.

If tomatoes are expensive in your area, then focus on producing it. Meanwhile, keep in mind it won't remain like this forever, so you have to prepare yourself to produce another categories of goods once tomatoes lose price on local market. It's important to be aware how the system works, but it's also important to identify how to thrive inside it. Exports are always going to be the priority for third world countries, as that is how farmers make largest profit, so it's a logic you aren't going to change anytime soon.

One of the reasons for this is the distance between producers and consumers. If producers could supply their products directly to consumers without the help of a third party, then the interests of both producers and consumers would be protected. But in most countries, a third party exists between producers and consumers, as a result of which producers work hard and produce other products, but they cannot sell them at the right price at the consumer level, and even though there is sufficient supply, the products do not reach the consumers in sufficient quantities. As a result, even though producers sell at a low price, consumers have to buy them at a high price. The third party benefits from this.

the producers and customers gape is based on reality and its true that when an other party comes between them then its creates price differnce and obviously both producers and customers badly affected. Casually producers trying there best to give good quality to purchasers but after putting efforts they don't receive the deserving prices and on the other way purchases can be forced to pay more money and due to this error third party make money. So if produccers directly involved with customers than both sides gone to positive way. So to reduce this gap Direct marketing is a good step to protect the customers feed back. And also a transappearent distribution system can build a strong ability and its help a lot to stable the market.

Oversupply on the farmer side > limited logistics > supplies rotting simultaneously > hampered distribution > shortage of supply on the customer side > prices remain high. Import decisions are usually made months in advance based on data, but yeah predictions can be off (or your government simply doesn't know well the typical harvest season)

In this case it could be that someone is playing the price of tomatoes in your market so that tomatoes are not distributed properly, there is always the question of why prices are still expensive but farmers harvest abundantly? this is not a distribution failure, there is a mafia playing behind it, slow or fast you will know the background of things like this regarding commodities, there are also events in my country like this, but it's not tomatoes, it's rice and oil, the mafia is playing prices and not circulating goods so that prices are still expensive in the market.

Farmers should be under the control of government agricultural agencies. Allowing farmers to act as they like will undermine the food security of the country. Some of these farmers receive grants and enjoy subsidies from the government to ensure an unhindered supply of agricultural produce. Farmers who destroy products because they want to manipulate the market should be sanctioned. The people who enjoy cheap produce instead of destroying it. The reason why some agricultural products are destroyed is due to poor or a lack of storage facilities.

Farmers produce crops in one area, but those crops are sold in different markets of the country. Farmers have no way to distribution. These works are done through middlemen or big area-based businessmen. They actually control the prices of these daily commodities. They do not distribute the crops produced in the country properly and deliberately reduce the supply compared to the demand. The prices of all those products increase in the market. Then, excluding the country's crops, food crops are imported from abroad and sold at high prices. The main reason for this, I think, is that farmers cannot directly connect themselves with all the markets of the country. They always depend on others. If the whole sellers do not buy the products produced by the farmers, a farmer cannot directly reach such a large amount of his products to all the markets of the country. That is why the market is manipulated very easily, and the farmers and consumers suffer losses but the agents in between benefit.

I know another story where vegetable vendors throw mountains of spoiled vegetables into landfills. Why? Because inflated prices (the vendor's greed) mean the produce sits on the shelves for a long time, spoils, and has to be thrown out. This isn't oversupply. It's the invisible hand of the market, secretly managing all processes. I also know of stories where the (better quality) products of a local manufacturer couldn't compete with imported (inferior quality) ones, and the consumer received a completely different product. If it weren't for the excessive greed of sellers and intermediaries. I don't think the government should interfere in market processes, as this usually only leads to a worsening of the situation. Regulatory intervention shouldn't be considered a panacea for all ills, even market ones.