Our family has a number of farms and my mother-in-law makes this same statement. I consider it an admission of fantasy. Reality is that there is no profit. Period. Subsidies are the same as charity. There are some welfare recipients who are clear enough to glory in it, and I find the brazen attitude more honest than for some bum were to say he needs the assistance because without the subsidies "there would be virtually NO profit" in his daytime TV watching.
If these words are harsh then reality is harsh. Most taxpayers are livid at being forced to support someone else's unsustainable lifestyle. We especially hate it when these panhandlers become abusive and start accusing their benefactors of not caring about the underprivileged, or the community welfare, or dependence on foreigners, or whatever. I say people who can work but prefer to live off my taxes should at least say "thank you" and drop the nonsense about who cares more about American self-sufficiency. It seems that if more Americans individually would accept the responsibility of paying their own way, then America as a whole would be in a stronger position to sustain itself.
As much as it may pain you to admit it, your MIL is correct. There really are no profits without subsidies.
This is purposeful. Rather than having 200 million people howling about "food" costs at the grocery store, our nasty politicians have, for years, subsidized your food costs at the producer end.
End result: you HATE the people who grow your food. Why don't you take a minute to think about that.
Farmers are by nature, independent people. Do you think that we enjoy having to grovel to the Government, filling out all of their ridiculous paperwork....it makes the IRS look like a cakewalk. And then, we have our completely ungrateful and clueless fellow citizens BITCHING that we are "welfare" recipients. Most would last, working on the average farm, about as long as Paris Hilton.
The prices paid for our products are manipulated; we have NO say over it, and are completely unable to pass along the increased costs of production to the buyers of our products. Prices for corn are at 1970 levels. Yields have slightly less than doubled since then; input costs have increased at least tenfold.
Why don't you at least be honest and admit that YOU are willing to sell out our entire food supply to the third world. That's what will happen if this course continues.
Alternatively, you could get rid of the subsides, but NOT until you get rid of the Government-supported cabal of price-fixing in Chicago; otherwise the former is fait accompli.