Spatial patterns of agricultural activities are affected by physical, cultural and political variables. It is noted by human geographers that economic variables are also essential.
Agricultural products are produced in response to market demand; thus farming is produced in subject to laws of supply and demand.
Since when supply increases and demand decreases when the price rises, an equilibrium price (p) can be identified at the intersection of two curves.
%%In the developed parts of the world, farmers value stability and independence, and they willingly sacrifice profits accordingly or choose to respond to decreasing prices by increasing rather than decreasing supplies.%%
Farmers in the less developed parts of the world, tend not to be profit maximizers, but their behaviour may well be rational.
The aim of subsistence agriculture is to produce the amount required to meet only family needs; here profit maximization has no meanings.
Changes to the food supply system mean that geographers are directing much attention to the idea of a commodity network that links production, distribution, and consumption and that operates in particular environmental, economic, cultural, and political contexts.
Agricultural change has gone through four distinct phases since World War II:
%%The significance of gender relations in the agricultural restructuring process is increasingly apparent, especially to those employing a political economy approach to the study of agriculture.%%