The agricultural population would become more and more a sort of appendage to a national park, quaint folk preserved to people the scenery, and deliberately prevented from making the mental and technological adjustments that would enable them to be self-supporting. Such attempts to preserve particular members of the agricultural population by sheltering them against the necessity of changing strong traditions and habits must turn them into permanent wards of government, pensioners living off the rest of the population.
—Friedrich Hayek. (The Constitution of Liberty, 1960.)
There is nothing so special about agriculture that requires farmers to become wards of the state. Subsidies are not required in order to convince people to eat. Agriculture should be allowed to evolve according to its own market influences.
