It may be interesting to look at the history and current perceptions of farm subsidies in New Zealand too.
Revolution in a Small Country by R. W. Bradford http://www.libertysoft.com/liberty/features/58bradford1.html "Not surprisingly, with a guaranteed profit on every sheep they produced and subsidies to increase production, farmers added to their herds. New Zealand's sheep population increased from 55 million in 1975 to 70 million in the early 1980s, despite the declining demand. The government purchased the surplus sheep, killed them and froze them, and ultimately processed the carcasses into fertilizer, which it sold back to the farmers at subsidized rates. The economics of the whole process were appalling: in one instance, sheep that cost the taxpayer $330 million in subsidies were converted into fertilizer and sold for $6.5 million." ... "Farmers, traditionally the backbone of National Party support, were the first special-interest group to find itself in Douglas's crosshairs. Supplementary minimum prices were abolished and loans brought up to market rate. (To help farmers who had borrowed against subsidy-inflated land values, capital amounts of loans were reduced, so very few farmers were forced off their land.) Farmers marched on Wellington, but the Labour government was firm. Within a few years, farmers had adjusted to the new rules, become entrepreneurial, and were strong supporters of the Revolution. This pattern repeated itself in other sectors of the economy. "Before you remove the privileges of a protected sector," Douglas wrote in 1989, "it will tend to see change as a threat which has to be opposed at all costs. After you remove its privileges and make plain that the clock cannot be turned back, the group starts to focus on removing the privileges of other groups that still hold up its own costs." ... "The farmers, hit hard in the Revolution's early days, quickly learned about free markets and seemed much better businessmen than the subsidized and regulated American farmers I've met. They routinely discussed the world market prices for various farm products, and about shifting production based on market conditions. Right now, many are getting out of sheep and especially beef, where prices are low, and moving into deer, because venison prices are high. I spoke to only one farmer who wasn't making a profit. He was a wealthy American who two decades ago had bought land that he farms more as a hobby than as a business."
