I don't like the govt meddling in my business either, wish they were out of it.
But - they tend to use food as a weapon - embargos - and so for that they need to come in with money to keep farming a viable business. Whare I live 1/3 of our crops, maybe more, get exported to other countries; so long as the govt plays with the exports, they can destroy ag in the USA with obne or 2 moves.
As well, food is a bit of a national security issue, it does need some sort of disaster floors.
I kinda wish they would scrap all of what they have, and work out a basic support program - something like the Counter-Cyclical program - to fill in the disaster years a little, but not very often. The counter-cyclical program is the only one I think really fills a need, and is the least-used branch of the farm programs. If they could link it to low-production and govt-created low prices, but not have all the extra LDP, loan, insurance subsidy, Sure, etc. etc. junk. Just a basic deal for real bad industry or community-recking periods.
The insurance subsidies just seems to ensure big farmers can get much bigger - it cheapens the risk of farming so lenders can make bigger loans to bigger farms. But then farmers collect the insurance, they don't struggle to plant some grain to get some sort of harvest off of flooded acres, etc. Over all, this leads to less grain produced in bad years, and those are the years we need to be working hard to make grain. Very counter-productive to take it easy & collect insurance checks in the bad years. Upsetting to world grain supplies....
So yea, there is a lot to not like about the govt farm programs. Senators from my state have played big roles in the farm bill for decades, and while their heart has been in the right place (even tho I'm from a different phylosopy...) they don't always understand the global impact of farm programs.....
Your friend that got $100 an acre in payments - was he paying $40 an acre in insurance for the revenew protection? How many bu of $6 corn did he lose in the bad weather? Did his landlords up the rent about double in the past 4 years? His $100 'free govt money' might not have gone very far, might not have been very 'free' in the big picture, if we know the full story, not just 1/2 of it.
I think there is more for us to agree about than argue about. :) Some of your comments on grain vs livestock guys is the same old 'kick the other person' stuff in my mind, but nothing I haven't heard before, and the grain farmers kick the other way too so it's all good. :)
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