Destruction of surplus agricultural produce

When market conditions are unfavourable, perfectly good agricultural crops will not be harvested. Fruit are left to rot on the trees, or picked and disposed of in pits, and crops are ploughed back into the ground. This is usually because the prices to harvest and handle the crop are higher than the produce is worth in the marketplace. Low market prices may be the result of "overproduction" due to poor agricultural policy which has not regulated the acreage of that crop in response to the demand, or it may be the result of an unexpectedly good season. In response to fluctuating reserves of staple foods, such as grains, some agricultural departments give subsidies to farmers not to plant at all that year rather than flood the market with product which would lower the average price for all.