Farmer Welfare

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: One of the largest farm real estate booms in decades could be getting a boost from an unsuspecting player: the U.S. taxpayer.
The government foots the bill for a large chunk of the nation's enormous crop insurance program, which essentially guarantees farmers a profit. That, in turn, removes a lot of the risk from large rent commitments or bidding big for land at auction.
While agricultural economists say they don't think anyone has researched a connection among the program, farm rents and high land prices, some farmers and other observers say it exists.
Commodity prices are the flames under cropland values, which have reached levels not seen in a century, even adjusted for inflation. But as 48-year-old farmer Darwyn Bach sees it, crop insurance is "throwing a little gas on the fire."
Designed as a safety net, crop insurance was meant to cushion farmers from the multitude of risks that farming is famous for, from hailstorms to floods. But now, about 80 percent of the country's crop insurance policies are revenue policies, protecting farmers not only from weather and yield losses, but also from drops in prices.....
The policy he bought guarantees him 85 percent of the sale price of his proven corn yield, or about $940 an acre, based on a price that's been set, he said. It costs him about $480 an acre to grow the corn.
That's a guaranteed profit of $460 an acre. Bach still has to pay rent out of that, but figures he'll pocket about $200 an acre -- an "exceptional" amount, he said.
For farmers who own their land, the guaranteed profit could be more like $460 an acre, he said. For a 1,000-acre operation, that's a guaranteed $460,000.
 http://www.startribune.com/business/161389375.html
This nothing but welfare for farmers.  Considering that there very few  farms nowadays that is your stereotypical family farm, many farms are large corporations.  Further, insurance should not be for a guaranteed profit.  The insurance should be for a disaster like a flood, fire, drought and bugs, not because crop prices are low.  We don't offer and should not offer insurance for other businesses (well, I guess you can talk about bailouts, which I was against) 
Farmers, like many police offers and firefighters, use sympathy to get what they want.  Police officers and firefighters say you cannot lay them off because supposedly it will make their community more dangerous.  Meanwhile, farmers cry that they should have a guaranteed income or else they will go out of business and we will run out of food.
But, we don't to want offend the farmers, so we give them a guaranteed profit, unlike most other businesses- except some utilities.
Time to get rid the guaranteed profits and have the insurance only for true emergencies, not for price support.