Cotton and Hayek

"Cotton prices touched their highest level since Reconstruction on Friday, as a string of bad harvests and demand from China spark worries of a global shortfall..."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704300604575554210569885910.html?KEYWORDS=cotton+prices

This is the first sentence in a fun article discussing the modern history of cotton prices. My eye was caught by the use of the word "shortfall". Consider this word in the context of James's re-posting the quote from Hayek on "price" as the essential piece of information in balancing supply and demand. It makes us see the word "shortfall" as poorly chosen in an economic sense. Rather, the authors should have used "decrease in supply", because we are not going to "run out" of cotton this year, that would require government intervention. Rather with a decrease in supply, we are going to see an increase in price, until demand decreases to match the supply. Now the article makes sense.