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Sininenn t1_irdfu3g wrote

Reply to comment by CustomerComplaintDep in Global Agricultural Land Use v. Agricultural Production [OC] by rosetechnology

No, the monetary value is a representation of how much value the consumers bring to vendors, shipping companies, food processing companies, and farmers.

It is richer in muddling factors too, such as profit increases across all levels of the supply chain, price changes due to crop losses, and all other possible market fluctuations which influence the price.

As such, it is a bad metric of value, quantity, quality or volume of food or agricultural production.

Or anything other than money, really...

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CustomerComplaintDep t1_irfkkiw wrote

Since producers and consumers agree on a price, we can deduce that the price is a value that is at least as much as the value to suppliers and no more than the value to consumers. So, while this does not capture consumer surplus, we can say that the value to consumers is at least this much.

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Sininenn t1_irfry94 wrote

Producers and consumers do NOT agree on a price.

Price is much, much more complex than a mere agreement, which implies negotiations, which there are absolutely none taking place during final customer purchase...

You can haggle the price when buying on a large scale, but try going into the supermarket and asking them to sell you food for less than the set price.

A price in and of itself brings zero value to customers...

Using monetary value to judge the production levels is misleading.

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CustomerComplaintDep t1_irhektx wrote

Why would there need to be negotiation? Suppliers offer a price and consumers take it or leave it. Supply and demand causes the price to be set where both producers and consumers are satisfied. Of course the price does not, in itself, bring value. That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that the value is implied by the price. No consumer would buy it unless they perceive that the value is greater than or equal to the price. So, the fact that they buy it tells us that the value is at least as high as the price.

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