It seems to me that the reason we need farm subsidies is to keep America's foodsupply domestic. Without price supports, we'd be importing the majority of our food, which could be catastrophic in a war or other emergency.
We already import a TON of food and vegetables from Mexico and Canada. When it comes to food, their is only so much you can actually import that won't spoil by the time it reaches the buyers -> warehouse -> store.
Without subsidies we'd be importing a lot more staple grain products that are quite resistant to spoilage. I think the best way to ensure that I can still get bread if the unthinkable happens is to keep wheat production in the US.
If things reached the point where war against the US was massive that you couldn't get food from anyone, you'd have the things to worry about, like the nukes flying over your head.
Farm subsidies are nothing but disgusting protectionism, and inflate the price of food in an outrageous way, while at the same time condemning to death thousands of farmers on the third world. Know why drugs are such a popular crop in third world countries? Because it's the only thing they can sell that isn't outpriced by subsidized farmers from the first world. This is all to benefit a minuscle percentage of people.
I'd have other things to worry about besides food? There's not really anything more important to me. While food subsidies do make food more expensive with taxation, lower income people (the ones who need help paying for food) pay far less because they pay little in income taxes. Millions of poor people, not just farmers, benefit from sunsidies. I'm willing to pay a little more in taxes to keep the price of food low (whixh eliminates a lot of other hunger-related problems) and not have to worry about America being a major importer of food (being a major importer of oil is bad enough) I also think that the demand is such for drugs that growing coca or poppies will always be more profitable than growing food, especially when the government keeps reducing the supply by destroying all that it can find.
