Goedjn wrote:
> >Nope. No valid reason at all. Farming is a business. Farmers should
> >be treated as, and behave as, other business people.
>
> farming is a low-profit business.

So what?


> if you open it up to unfettered free markets,

The markets for the goods *are* free. It's at the producer end that
all the economic foolishness and mischief is done.

> most sensible people will end up doing something else,

People have been abandoning the farms for over a century.


> and all our food production will be outsourced to other countries.

Probably not. The US seems to have at the very least a comparative
advantage, and quite probably an absolute advantage, in agriculture.

> Which is fine, until the countries selling you the food get annoyed
> with you for some reason....

There are lots of countries that are net food importers, many on a huge
scale.