That doesn't contradict GP's point. Keeping prices from dropping too low reduces incentives for farmers to exit the business, thereby maintaining high capacity for when it's needed.
How so? We're talking about acres not farmers. Small farms can go under and larger farms will take over working the land. We saw that in the 80s. The land being conserved is generally lower capacity anyways (they aren't going enroll the high producing acres).
So it might not contradict in theory, but the evidence from the current situation seems to support that the capacity is not valued and only the price control reason is. Is there any support for the idea that it's about having reserve capacity to utilize? Has it ever been utilized?
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/big-farms-are-getting-b...
There are much fewer farmers than there used to be. But simple math tells you that more food consumption divided by fewer farmers provides a huge opportunity for more profit per farmer. If you are politically- and business-savvy enough you can become enormously wealthy.
> CRP protects more than 20 millions of acres of American topsoil from erosion and is designed to safeguard the nation’s natural resources
https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/Fa...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/why-does-the-govt-pay-f...
https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas
> Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the Department’s focal point for the Nation’s farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance, conservation programs …
> The mission of Natural Resources and Environment is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.
> So far there is no evidence that is the purpose, since it has never been unenrolled or utilized, even as there is talk about food crisis related to the war in Ukraine.
The US Department of Agriculture protects the interests of agriculture in the US, not the Middle East and North Africa.
The evidence that it is used for agriculture conservation is the fact that it is called agriculture conservation.
To put it quite plainly, can you point to a time when lands were unenrolled from conservation programs in order to increase food production capacity?
Does it do something else? I have no clue what you're insinuating.
The prices of food are, in fact, an important part of agriculture policy. This is in conjunction with, not in lieu of, conservation policies.
US agriculture policy has done a pretty good job at this. The US has been, for a while, the country with the #1 lowest percentage of consumer expenditure on food.
I'm in two minds. We can't afford for anything to go wrong with food security, so it might make sense to do something otherwise wildly stupid if it contributes to people not starving to death. But I question whether any given policy is likely to help or if it is a handout for nothing.
But to resolve that specific policies, places & examples are needed. Debating theory isn't enough.