Agricultural Subsidy Politics

My job depends on the surpluses generated by American agricultural subsidy programs. My job depends *directly* on those surpluses, as I'm a customer support guy for a program used by large cotton agribusinesses. It also indirectly depends on those surpluses, as they generate additional grant money and demand for agricultural IT among agribusinesses that benefits the rest of the company I work for.

I'm a free-trade economic conservative.

You could say that I'm kind of conflicted about agricultural subsidies.

I like to think that the work I do in HighQ contributes to more efficient fertilizer and chemical usage among our customers, indirect and direct; that a better picture of costs and usages makes overapplication and wasteful application less common. That's my rationalization for what I do. But I wonder if the agribusinesses would have money for the recordkeeping and costs involved if they weren't so heavily subsidized by the government.

In other words, I acknowledge that subsidies create distortions in the market. I'm just afraid that I make my living off of one of those distortions.