Probably the single largest issue facing smallholder farmers everywhere is extreme price swings, over which they have no control, the effects of which are cumulative and last well beyond the time scale of individual prices cycles. Judith Ganes, President of J Ganes Consulting LLC in the US, is well-known as an analyst in the agricultural commodity sector. As she noted, when she first began her career, price support agreements for commodities were all the rage. "Although cartels are illegal in the USthere was no way to stop producers and consumers joining forces to act in concert to try to avoid volatility and boom-bust price cycles by signing pacts that kept prices locked in a prescribed range, at levels that were attractive for both producers andconsumers," she explained.
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