| Commodity and energy prices have exhibited an unprecedented increase between October 2006 and July 2008, only to fall sharply during the last months of 2008. Many explanations have been offered to this phenomenon, including steadily increasing demand from China and India, large mandated increases in ethanol production, droughts in some key agricultural producer countries, production plateaus in some major oil-producing countries, refinery capacity limits, demand pressure from the derivatives market owing to the diversification properties of commodities, etc. Clearly, agricultural input, output, and energy products are closely related economically. In addition to biofuels, the connection points include nitrogen-based solution liquid fertilizers, fossil... |
