When world output falls, do prices rise?

Not across crops as a group. In the 719 crop-years since 1993 in which a priced crop's world output changed, the real price rose in 51% of the 109 years when output fell by 3% or more, in 45% of the 303 years when it barely moved and in 51% of the 307 years when it rose. The rank correlation between the change in output and the change in price across all cases is 0.00.

That is a surprising result and deserves caution rather than a conclusion; a few individual crops do show a link, in both directions (see the crop-by-crop table). Annual world output is a blunt measure: a shortage in one region can be offset by stocks or by another region, a price can anticipate the shortfall before the harvest, and one year's average price blends the months before and after. Prices are also driven by demand, energy costs, currencies and policy, none of which are held constant here. What the table does show is that a fall in world output is not, on its own, a reliable signal of a higher price in the same year.

Real price change by size of change in world output
Years when	Cases	Median price change, same year	Price rose	Median price change, next year
World output fell 3% or more	109	+0.4%	51%	+3.9%
Output within ±3%	303	−1.7%	45%	+0.3%
Output rose 3% or more	307	+0.6%	51%	−2.9%

Next-year price changes lean the other way: a median of +3.9% after an output fall and −2.9% after a rise. That is consistent with prices partly reverting, but it is a median over many different crops and is not a forecast.

Each dot is one crop in one year, 24 crops from 1993 to 2024.

The largest output falls

Largest one-year falls in world output and the price change
Crop	Year	World output	Real price, same year	Next year
Tobacco	1998	−23%	−7%	−11%
Coconut oil	1999	−23%	+10%	−41%
Tobacco	1994	−23%	−4%	−3%
Barley	2010	−18%	+21%	+27%
Coconut oil	2011	−17%	+49%	−37%
Sorghum	1993	−17%	−6%	+2%
Coconut oil	1996	−16%	+9%	−15%
Sorghum	2009	−15%	−27%	+8%
Coconut oil	2002	−14%	+30%	+9%
Coconut oil	2020	−14%	+36%	+55%
Cotton	2015	−14%	−15%	+4%
Peanuts	2006	−13%	−3%	+39%
Sorghum	1997	−13%	−29%	−12%
Barley	1995	−13%	+39%	+12%

Crop by crop

Rank correlation between output change and price change, for crops with at least 20 years: from -0.66 (sunflower oil) to 0.42 (rice). With 20 to 30 years each, values between about −0.35 and 0.35 are indistinguishable from noise, so read only the extremes.

Output-price rank correlation by crop
Crop	Rank correlation	Years
Sunflower oil	-0.66	20
Lamb	-0.37	32
Palm kernel oil	-0.28	27
Coffee	-0.26	32
Coconut oil	-0.24	31
Soybeans	-0.22	32
Cocoa	-0.20	32
Palm oil	-0.18	31
Sugar	-0.16	31
Barley	-0.08	27
Oranges	-0.08	32
Tea	-0.01	32
Bananas	0.08	32
Canola	0.10	21
Beef	0.13	32
Corn	0.13	32
Wheat	0.18	32
Sorghum	0.24	27
Chicken	0.27	32
Peanuts	0.27	32
Tobacco	0.30	32
Natural rubber	0.37	25
Cotton	0.42	31
Rice	0.42	32

World output: FAOSTAT, sum of reporting countries, from 1992 (earlier, the country coverage of the sum changes with the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia). Price: World Bank Pink Sheet primary benchmark, calendar-year average, deflated by the US consumer price index to 2024 dollars; only complete years. Crops whose production series is a proxy (orange juice, cardamom) are excluded. This measures association, not cause.

More patterns

Concentration: How much of each commodity comes from one country?
Producer or exporter?: Is the biggest producer also the biggest seller abroad?
Prices in real terms: Which prices are records once inflation is removed?
Growth and decline: Whose output is rising or falling fastest?
Linked prices and seasons: Which prices move together, and which have a season?
Reserves and mining: Where are the deposits, and who digs them up?
Supply concentration: Which commodities depend on the fewest suppliers?
Land or yield?: Did output grow because farmers planted more or farmed better?
Category price indices: How have energy, metals and food prices moved since 1960?
Drawdowns and volatility: How far do prices fall, and do they recover?
Stocks and prices: Are prices lower when the world holds more stock?
Which prices follow oil?: How closely does each commodity track crude oil?
How reliable is the data?: How much of world output rests on estimates?
Net exporters and importers: Who is a net seller and who a net buyer?
Country leaders: Which countries lead across the most commodities?
Export dependency: Which countries rely on one commodity?
Concentration over time: Has production spread out or narrowed?
Import dependency: Which countries buy most of a commodity from one supplier?
Supplier shifts: Who gained and lost importers' business?
Trade price against benchmark: Does traded product sell above or below the benchmark price?
Prices in other currencies: How much of a price move is the dollar?
Do prices lead each other?: Does one commodity price move before another?
Volatility over time: Are prices more volatile now than they used to be?
Seasonality: Which prices have a calendar-month pattern?
Price ratios: What does one commodity buy of another, and is that high or low?
El Niño and prices: Do El Niño and La Niña years move commodity prices?
Who consumes it: Which countries consume each commodity, and how much per person?
Self-sufficiency: Which large markets depend on imports, and which produce far more than they use?
Trade flows: Who sells each commodity to whom?

Every figure is computed from the same tables as the commodity pages. The full set is in patterns.json, and single facts from it appear each day on the facts page.