How about we allow the small farmer to compete with the Goliath and allow raw milk sales? That will help lower the price!
Oh, that’s not the kind of price lowering you were talking about is it Mr Milk Mogul.
You have it backwards. Goliath would very quickly put all the small farmers out of business. The milk and sugar programs are probably the worst sections of the farm bill and should be radically reformed, but ....
The truth is, the big farmers and agribusinesses don't need the commodity programs. They use them, of course; if the feds have a thumb in the scale, anyone competing in an affected market has to play ball to remain competitive. But that said, the big guys could easily go full free market. The programs are there to keep the small farmers in business.
Then things get tricky. Critics who understand the above will sometimes argue that we should means test the programs. That's a plan, Sherlock: let's have a farm program that systematically discriminates against our most innovative, productive, and competitive producers. Strikes me as stupid, but others' mileage may vary.
Then the international dimension kicks in. As bad as U.S. farm policy is, the fact is, on the international scene, we are one of the good guys. Our hands are not clean, but we are a lot better than most of the furriners, and our farmers are competing in global markets. The best way to unwind the farm policy mess would be in the context of multilateral trade negotiations, but that is notoriously difficult.
So here we are. I am not a defender of the current mess, but I do think it's useful to recognize that reform is not as simple as some think. It's also useful to recognize that our farm programs have produced a U.S. food system that is remarkably cheap and wonderfully abundant. American consumers are currently spending less than 6% of disposable income on food at the grocery store, the lowest ratio in the world and the lowest in U.S. history, at least since USDA has tracked the number. Including food eaten away from home, we spend less than 10% of disposable income, again the lowest in the world. This is popularly regarded as a policy failure. Go figure.