Pay attention to how farmers and ranchers do business and then see how those gifts from the government work. If you own a store and someone comes in to buy your goods, you say “that will be $12.00” or whatever the cost is for that product. When a farmer goes to the grain terminal to sell his wheat, he says “what will you give me today?” The rancher gets the same treatment at the stock sale.
Both scenarios are the same. Buyer and seller are both free to state their price and both are free to walk away. The truth of the matter is subsidies don't solve anything. In this case they allow too many farmers to remain in the industry, which is exactly the reason so many of them cannot be profitable without government assistance. Pull the subsidies, allow some farms to fail, achieve market equilibrium, and the remaining ones will be able to charge more. It's no different than any other market.
This country has the cheapest food prices in the world, along with the most bountiful supply.......thanks to the government. But, before someone jumps all over me for saying that, there's what I mean............the government designed it that way, and the populace has willingly gone along with it, as well as the farmers.
People won't gripe if the price of new car goes, up, or a TV, or the latest fashions, or beer, or whiskey, or entertainment, and any thing else they could live without. But, when a loaf of bread goes up a dime, they gripe. When the price of bacon goes up 50 cents, the gripe. Same way with any other foodstuff..........people have gotten so used to cheap food, that they've become expectant of it.
That is just exactly how government has planned it. Control the farmers to the point that they have to keep producing and raising crops, in order to keep the food supply in good order. Many farmers today will admit that they "farm" the government, and that's what keeps them in business. Most that I know don't like it, and had much rather that government get completely out of agriculture, and let the farmer alone.
So, let's say that government got out of farming, and farmers could grow what they wanted, and charge what they wanted. How long do you think the current cheap prices would be around? They wouldn't, and government knows what would happen as a result, so they do what they consider necessary to keep food prices low. As someone who has farmed for almost 50 years, I hate dealing with USDA and their stupid regulations that they come up with........but since it is the way that it has to be, I go along with it, and have done what I had to do in order to keep farming. I've had some land that's been in CRP for almost 30 years now,and I get a check every year as a result. It's marginal cropland, located where I don't want to pasture it, and has been good for the wildlife to be sowed down and not bothered. I've also gotten USDA money for some conservation programs I've enrolled in, and I'll keep putting in for them in the future.....not because I need the money, but because it's what most farmers I know do, and it has nothing to with their political affiliation. Most farmers are Trump supporters anyway, and have stuck with him even though the trade wars he instigated hurt their bottom line.
The cold hard fact is that government is going to do what it takes to make sure that food is cheap and plentiful, and the farmer is going to do whatever it takes to stay in business.........and most farmers aren't good businessmen. They do what they do because they love it.
