Introduction
Cost price squeeze is increasing of costs when market pressures like competition make it hard to increase commodity prices in order to cover for the escalating costs. In agriculture it involves increasing costs of inputs like seeds and fertilizers and the decrease of crop prices. The farmers end up paying more than they get due to the squeeze between prices and costs. Increase of costs in upstream can be caused by energy costs fluctuation, consolidation, and inflation. When fertilizer and seed companies consolidate, there are no low cost inputs for farmers to buy. Prices on the downstream can decline ...