House Republicans Hate Poor Too Much to End Farm Socialism
By Jonathan Chait
The right-wing critique of Big Government — bloated, wasteful spending with no real purpose that imposes huge costs on the market — is basically wrong, but there’s one major piece of the government in which it’s completely right: agriculture policy. The farm sector is a vast archipelago of socialism sitting amid a free-market economy. Agri-socialism commands essentially zero intellectual support. Conservatives hate it. Liberals hate it. Experts or academics who study it tend to say things like, “It's so astonishingly irrational, it just takes your breath away.” Agri-socialism operates largely in a self-contained world dominated by the economic interests that benefit from it. So, for instance, the “National Milk Producers Federation” can say things like, “This supply management provision is crucial to ending low milk prices,” as if maintaining high prices were a sensible public policy goal.
Basically, there is no reason at all for the government to single out farmers for special support, as opposed to any other kind of business owners. If I were looking to cut domestic spending, or even if I weren’t, farm subsidies would be the first thing to go, the most unjustifiable government program of any significant size. It’s worth noting that the budget figures don’t nearly capture the cost of agriculture subsidies, much of which come in the form of quotas and tariffs that result in higher consumer prices but don’t entail writing checks from Washington.
Unfortunately, even though congressional Republicans are looking to cut domestic spending, most of them regard agriculture subsidies as an especially meritorious program, not an especially awful one. Some of them want to cut it deeply or even do away with it, but not enough. And the main dynamic that prevents reform, and the reason the farm bill ultimately went down on the House floor today, is that the conservatives who do want to cut agriculture subsidies will only do it if they can also kick the living crap out of the poor.
Agriculture subsidies have traditionally been bundled together with food stamps, in order to create a legislative coalition. (Farmers like the fact that food stamps mean more people can buy their food.) But in recent years, conservatives have gone from tolerating food stamps to absolutely loathing them. This year, House Republicans have attached to their farm bill deep cuts in food stamps, which have grown costlier because the recession has vastly increased the number of poor, hungry Americans (and not, as many Republicans claim, because of loose eligibility standards).
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/gop-hates-poor-too-much-to-end-farm-socialism.html
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and the hate (of the gov't helping the poor) is palpable...
http://mercatus.org/publication/history-farm-bill-spending
The rationale to use farm subsidies to keep farm households out of poverty made some sense in the 1930s, but it doesn’t today.
Despite the fact that farm households are doing as well or better than other households, farm households are still targeted for billions of dollars in government payments.
agricultural production.
http://mercatus.org/publication/bloated-farm-subsidies-will-2013-farm-bill-really-cut-fat
As stated so far, price stabilization, and supporting small farms. I'd add that we should be putting far more money into organic farming, partly as a means of combating global warming (healthy topsoil is a major carbon sink.)
I'd also like to give temporary/start-up subsidies to hemp farmers, once we are allowed to do that kind of thing 
actual owner of the farm land may not be getting the subsidies at all. If the owner engages in a
rent/cash agreement with the renter, it is the renter who pockets the subsidies. Now if and probably the renter also rents other farms plus his own which he can claim, subsidies become very lucrative. Bad weather? Bad market? no worries....there are subsidies that keep things going along.
Used to be and I'm assuming that the gov't also still pays farmers not to plant a cash crop on specified acreage. It's planted with grass or something to hold the soil but....I suppose they do this for keeping prices up on grain (supply down). It's nuts!
Planting corn for ethanol is another matter that needs a good looking at.
I really think it is unfair to subsidize farming to the extent it is esp. when corporate farms are involved. It's my belief that if the family farm goes down one of a few things have happened:
1) the farmer has grossly mis-managed 2) the farmer has been taken by those doing the actual
farming or 3) the land is deficient. Remember, the owner is still subject to the property taxes (farmland has escalated in value), fencing, etc. and anything else he and his renter agree to....cost of nitrogen, e.g. I'll concede that rent is at a high but so are grain prices....for how long???? You may ask why rent it out? Many farms are old and there aren't descendents to farm it....so.
I read the Purdue University site for ag news and the Chicago Federal Reserve as a news source too. Look in your local area for sources such as these. It's quite enllightening.
I've learned a lot the last 17 months since my mother died. She was the sole descendent to the family farm (132 yrs.) and sadly 'taken' by the renter who convinced her he couldn't afford much in rent. His farm is adjacent to mine now so this was an easy deal for him....I'm sure he did this to other old farm owners too. All Mom needed to do was to look at his big equipment, grain dryers, Corvette collection, etc. But....no he's not renting the farm this year! From that linked site I found out he had been given a million dollars over ten years for the lands he farmed. TRUST me he is not the
only one....many on the link I've known all my life and it 'splains things I've always wondered about. 
Now when my grandfather farmed....he started out farming with horses! He tested the moisture content to know when to harvest by biting into a kernel of corn! Times have changed.
Don't you just love it when folks complain about bailing out the auto industry?
Edit: And there are people all over the planet without enough food....HOW can that be? But let's go after the SNAP users.
and the parts of the system that aren't working (such as land-owners getting the subsidies instead of the renters) need to be revamped. I don't agree that the entire program needs to be scrapped in order to eliminate said fraud and irregularities. If we did that to all government programs, we wouldn't have a government!
I also understand that operating a farm is costly, including topsoil management. However, that alone is one of the best investments a farmer can make, so long as they can remain on the land long enough to reap the benefits. I don't know what the solutions are, other than getting more Liberals and organic-farming-knowledgable people involved and/or employed by this program. It would help everyone, except the agri-business giants, and I would expect them to fight such changes.
Perhaps we could change the program to something akin to the SBA instead, and separate out programs like SNAP to operate on their own. I don't know; I'm no expert on federal operations, either.
you (generic "you" will get what you deserve.
I don't think the agri-business giants need any subsidies, but then, they'd probably raise their prices without them, and we'd have to spend more to re-stabilize prices. It's a complex system I don't pretend to fully understand or know, yet there are still simple functions, such as SNAP, and land conservation, that anyone can grasp and understand are beneficial to all
