Ah, but farmers don't take these subsidies and stuff them in their homespun mattresses. They pretty much hand them over to seed, fertilizer and equipment manufacturers.
George Archer was once asked why he didn't just employ farmers directly, instead of buying contracts for their output. He allegedly replied along the lines that he'd never be able to get away with treating employees so poorly.
Canada does not give their farmers subsidies for grain farms. I had friends that ran a fairly large farm. It was always fest or famine. On good years they would make hundreds of thousands of dollars and on bad years they would lose tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The issue was if you had a string of bad years for to long. My friend is still farming 20+ years now and he made money in all but 5 of them.
He also says that the work load is basically the same for a profit or loss year. It is based on the prices of the crops and that the yields stay the same. He predicts this year will be a BIG loss year.
Farming was something I did for 2 weeks a year for fun. It was so different than my desk jobs that I really enjoyed it and the economy of the business is really hard to get your head around but was fascinating to me.
George Archer was once asked why he didn't just employ farmers directly, instead of buying contracts for their output. He allegedly replied along the lines that he'd never be able to get away with treating employees so poorly.