Comment on That's how the world works.
The_v@lemmy.world 3 hours agoFarmers almost uniformly over-apply N fertilizer. Having it be more expensive and forcing them to look into more efficient ways of applying fertilizer and managing nutrients is not a bad thing.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
Unless it just causes the crop to cost more without any change in behavior.
The_v@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Farmers are price-takers not price-makers. The prices they receive are driven by speculation on the commodities markets (even for crops not traded on the market).
Since they can’t control the price they receive for their crop, they are very sensitive to any change in the cost of inputs. Determining how much to spent on inputs is the part of their profitablity they can control. So widespread behavioral change is usually pretty close to immediate.