You are ignoring the time scales, locations of the worst effects, and lots of other side effects like food protectionism and the planning that farmers have to make 9 months before the food shortages happen.
Government isn’t directly responsible for food prices, but they frequently involve themselves because social order/stability requires reasonable food prices. When store shelves are empty in a neighborhood/ region, riots break out. Riots work on the time scale of hours/days. Families having fewer kids is on the time scale of years. Farmers planning for likely yields/costs is months/years.
Your idea of “fair” suggests you would just shrug at the famines caused by Stalin and Mao regimes and blame the people because they weren’t willing to pay enough. When people are food desperate, social order, norms, and predictability break down. This is why governments have strong incentives to intervene to ensure reasonable food prices.
Government isn’t directly responsible for food prices, but they frequently involve themselves because social order/stability requires reasonable food prices. When store shelves are empty in a neighborhood/ region, riots break out. Riots work on the time scale of hours/days. Families having fewer kids is on the time scale of years. Farmers planning for likely yields/costs is months/years.
Your idea of “fair” suggests you would just shrug at the famines caused by Stalin and Mao regimes and blame the people because they weren’t willing to pay enough. When people are food desperate, social order, norms, and predictability break down. This is why governments have strong incentives to intervene to ensure reasonable food prices.