A lot of it is subsidized, another long run evil.
But if they let their markets be free, they’d have a better overall market picture.
It is subsidized, but most people don’t understand the underlying reason, although you touched on it.
Here it is in of briefest of terms.
Politicians don’t want people complaining about one of their very basic needs, food. The Cheap Food For Consumers program began decades ago under the general term The Farm Program.
It’s objective is to guide the production of cheap and plentiful food through the use of incentives and coercion of farmers.
Until the advent of ethanol, it was wildly successful, keeping plates full of high quality, cheap food. Farmers remained relatively poor.