Couple of considerations. In the real world consumption is always in relation to supply. If there is never a real need to worry about supply, like air, then consumption reveals little about cost. Food has never been in that catagory historically (the U.S., in it's very large and productive resources and recent development has probably been the least affected and has been a consistent exporter). Globally it's probably not a stretch to say almost every generation has been victim of food shortages, sometimes from war, sometimes by disease (potato famine) and the all too common droughts and floods.
For food there is always a market. IMO many seem to think futures are that market. I think it's the physical buying selling and production. The market is there and always has been and always will be. Physical trumps futures. If futures are out of whack I will guarantee you they will get realigned and reset periodically. The wheat shortage of 2007 was case in point. You could see it coming and it came. Futures were blindsided and failed to geive the market adequate time to ramp up production in time for it to matter. Then it went ballistic. The recent Russian crop failure was similar. It took the market a long time to react to the obvious. We were in a crappy economy then, but prices sailed and we exported a pile of wheat.
Through all the negativity of late the prices have been quite good. The market is sensitized to changes. If SA has a poor crop it will shake food commodity markets. Outside economics will have very little influence. Demand will be about the same ofr more in the end even if prices go sky high. We've proved this a number of times recently. It's as close to a constant in marketing as we have.
But I still see constant references to demand following economic conditions. That's not the way it happens. Plot global S/U with prices and there will be a rough correlation. Plot global consumption/demand against prices and see what you get.
