I believe cutting production actually does enter our minds, it just isn't blatant. Throughout the season we face numerous decisions, each factoring into our final yield. Do we bump our plant population, do we plant through a bit more trash than we really should, do we apply extra fertilizer, do we spray fungicide, do we treat for insects, do we stop irrigating a bit early? It is most certainly possible to shrink supply without decreasing acres.

The problem facing agriculture is if we throttle back production, society has already decided "We will import it on you". Furthermore society would never allow an implicit reduction in production that reached equilibrium on the supply-demand curves. Without an ample buffer, a leftward shift of the supply curve would necessitate an adjustment of the demand. A shortfall... axe ethanol. Still short... goodbye exports. Really short... industrial uses gone. Really really short... who goes first... hogs, chickens, cattle?

Furthermore agriculture is caught in a free trade paradigm. I cannot reduce my labor cost by hiring illegal immigrants. I cannot bring in 2000 non-licensed Chinese lawyers to conduct legal issues for me. If my employees health care consists of a Mexican doctor named Juan??? Yet if my products get too expensive, lower priced foreign crops can be brought in.

Food and its production IS a political issue. It will ALWAYS be an issue. The idea to get government out of agriculture is a fantasy... period. Agriculture's fate is not in its hands but in the hands of the side with the most people. Those people may bring money or ultimatums, but whatever their decisions... that's the way it is going to be.

Crop yield trend lines are going to go parabolic. If I recall correctly, Monsanto predicts a few 6 bu/acres increases for corn in its goal to double the national average by 2030. How do you even begin to limit supply when one year the national average is 164, and the next year's starting point is figured to be 170?

Farmers need to hold the line on expenses they can control, such as land/rent. The idea that 'Land ain't being made anymore' is Ba-lon-ey; in the last decade, look at the number of pivots that were put up in Nebraska. When the first generation of drought tolerant crops come online in 2012, and dryland crops start yielding what irrigated crops did a decade ago, technology will have created more ground. Still I wonder if land values can collapse fast enough to maintain profit given increasing supplies and limited demand.

Agriculture needs to keep adding more chairs to the negotiation table. More chairs, more people. More people more competition. Keep increasing the uses for our crops.