Nearly a decade of high crop prices and record farm subsidies from taxpayers isn't necessarily good news for rural America, says The Economist, a London-based global magazine that still calls itself a newspaper.

"Despite all this cash, rural America is in deep decline," says The Economist, which generally doesn't name its reporter/writers. "Two-thirds of rural counties lost population from 2010 to 2020, and the total population of rural America fell for the first time in history. The counties that grew were mostly not farming ones but pretty places where people go to retire, near mountains or the ocean, or those with lots of oil. The Midwestern areas which grow most of America’s food are shrinking fastest."

"Subsidies, largely in the form of crop insurance, help to ensure the food supply continues, and protect farmers from going bust during downturns," The Economist notes. " But they also determine what America farms—incentivizing farmers to grow vast amounts of soybeans and corn, as well as wheat, which is mostly exported. . . . Fresh fruit and vegetables, which Americans ought to eat more of, are more expensive to grow, and require more labor, but farmers receive almost no subsidies for them."

Read the full article about farm subsidies by Al Cross at The Rural Blog.