Does your company trade a global commodity like oil? The market prices it. Let’s say you had two buyers for your home with a market value of 300k. One buyer wanted to buy it for 240k and the other for 300k. Which offer would you take?
Do farmers triple or 5x the price of food during droughts?
Yes, actually. The price of 1 pint of real vanilla extract is currently $9.59 at Costco. I have seen it as high as $42.99. That is a nearly 5x spread, and it largely depends on the weather and politics in Madagascar.
I always though that it basically was conditions reduced supply (weather and politics), purchasers of the raw products basically get all of the available production at pretty close to standard prices for what limited amount there is, farmers who dont have product get no income, farmers with product get some - maybe a little more per unit but fewer units overall, and then the raise global prices was due to the tier 1 buyers/distributors needing to cover fixed processing and distribution premiums which do not fluctuate much even when supplies are low.
So, Madagascar by virtue of overwhelming percentage of production pretty much set the availability curve, but i expect farmers pretty much get what they get for the beans they grow, within a range and that's probably not more than 2x at most. But I could be way off and the 5x price differential is perfectly proportional, 5x cost of raw bean == 5x cost of delivered extract.