Luckily for the US farmers, this happened during an election year and Congress bailed them out. However, the US economy was not impacted by the health of the agricultural sector or the US government"s intervention to save it. The US farmers benefited from this action, but the rest of the US did not necessarily benefit or decline as a result. Because prices tended to be stabilized by government intervention, a farmer"s income would be more stable as a result. However, US taxpayers do feel this pinch as they end up paying to bail out farmers in times of crisis, since it is Congress who helps farmers in times of crisis and Congress gets this help from taxes on the American public. The consumer does lose an opportunity cost of buying agricultural goods at low market prices when the agricultural market is in recession if the government sets a price floor for agricultural goods. The US economy, however, is not hurt by this government intervention and the consumers" lost opportunity cost. The necessity of government intervention to help farmers during a recession in the agricultural market may be indicative of trouble ahead for the US economy.

             Without any kind of outside supply stabilizing influence, large price movements are inevitable in agricultural markets. The supply of agricultural produce depends on many factors, among which are demand for the product, technology, weather. The Law of Supply states that the higher the supply of a product, the lower the price. Conversely, the Law of Demand states the greater the demand for a product, the higher the price of that product will be. Technological advances in agriculture have less farmers in the US producing more products with less economic cost. Thus, technology allows for a greater supply. Because people can only consume so much, the amount of produce consumed per person doesn"t vary greatly on average. This means that the demand for produce is inelastic, that is, consumer response (the percentage change of the amount of produce they demand) doesn"t vary greatly whether or not the price of produce or the income of the consumer is high or low.