If a US politician called a farmer a traitor he would be tarred and feathered. The amerikan farmer part of our mythos like the cowboy. But most farms here are owned by large corporations who have a powerful lobby so that explains the tarriffs and subsidies.ALFONZO, Argentina -- When Héctor Farroni married a few years back, he took his new bride for a swing through Iowa. The silos and windmills, the spider-like combines, the wide, flat fields all reminded him of this region of eastern Argentina, part of a fertile farm belt that has propelled the country's economy since the 19th century.
The two regions have seemingly infinite potential and serve as breadbaskets to the world. But the similarities end there. While subsidies and low-interest loans sustain American farming, Argentina's government raises export taxes and calls the country's farmers greedy traitors out to topple the state. Now Argentina's heartland is being lashed by an economic crisis that has come in like the winter storms that blow off the Andes and across the pampa.
Washington Post
Meanhile our food prices keep going up and up but I don't hear much about it in the news.
Some people blame it on the corn crop being used to make ethanol to fuel cars. Which seems like a waste of ethanol to me. I would much rather drink it than put it in my gas tank.
Yeah, to think the system inside the system is really a drag... 
