The Complex Dynamics of Farm Growth

Economic change is richly varied as one readily discovers when comparing historical eras, geographical regions and different organisational situations. Long-established trends occasionally reverse themselves. Growth, for example, may switch over to decline or decline may change into growth. Commodity supplies and prices often fluctuate in irregular, and seemingly unpredictable, patterns. New scarcities and sometimes new surpluses arise. The future of one group of firms or households improves while that of another group declines. Occasionally, the entire economic system, or part of it, stops working or is threatened with breakdown.