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I don't know any wealthy fat farmers around here and I live in the middle of farm country. Most farmers I know can barely pay their taxes, maintain their machinery and feed their familys. If farmers didn't have a Chicago Board of Trade, a single entity, controlling the prices they get for production, the free market would dictate prices.

Agricultural prices are kept low by the government for two reasons. One is so our exports are cheap enough for every starving nation in the world to purchase (with subsidy) food. The other reason is purely political. Keep food prices artificially low so consumers can keep well fed, food stamp programs cost less, etc. Hungry people complain a lot more than well fed people.

Most of the wealth you percieve in the farm community is probably based on the land ownership. In the land of gated communitys with 5 acre "lots" there is the appearance of being wealthy compared to a home on a 100' by 100' lot.
So a farmer with 500 acres must seem to be extremely wealthy. In the age of volume and small profit margins for farmers, a farmer with 500 acres survives. They survive only because they use their equity of ownership to finance operating loans that have to be repayed when crops or livestock are sold. If the price of their product is low they have no choice but to sell because the Board of Trade has blocked competition and sale of product to the highest bidder.
The years of somewhat high prices are usually because of drought or flood. High prices do not necessarly mean the farmer profits because maybe he grew half the corn he grew last year. So the profit margin is a wash. Demand is still the same and one entity the CBT controls the storage capacity of grains.

Most farmers survive, some do well financially but for the 24/7/365 hours they commit to with no overtime or paid vacation or company health insurance bottom line is they really have to like their job to put up with the socialist crap that American agriculture has had forced on them.

The price of Your ribeye steak that cost you $8.99 a pound didn't all go to the farmer. He probably got about 10% of that. He took all the risks that the cow didn't get struck by lightning. He fed and watered and fenced the animal. He spent a lot of money on vet bills (talk about the high cost of health care, try animal medicine). He does all this knowing that there is a possibility that could still lose money because of situations or regulations that are beyond his control. In my books, a 10% margin in business is very slim profit that either has to be made up with volume sales or a prayer that noting goes wrong. And how many businesses invest in infrastructure when their product price is regulated and profits are low? Not many.

Farm economics are a whole different game compared to most other businesses. We cannot import cheap food or products and provide good paying jobs for Americans. And for the matter of national security, dependence on foreign countrys for our food, cotton, or whatever is a disaster waiting to happen. It is no more evident that oil imports and the dependence on foreign oil as to what potentially will happen.