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There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.

There is a reason, and it's a damn good one: To regulate supply and stabilize pricing.

Think about it: have you ever had to worry about food, really, really worry about it? A moderate price increase due to increasing oil prices at the turn of the century is the closest our country has ever come to a "food crisis". There has never been a serious food shortage or price inflation for food in the US for as long as I've been alive.

It used to not be that way. You can go back to the 70s, and read about how rapidly fluctuating food prices created quite a political stir, as evidenced by the April 1973 cover of Time Magazine. If you study the data on this page, you can see both how food prices (particularly beef) stabilized after 1980, and how the average worker has seen a steady increase over time in the amount of food that can be purchased with their wages.

That has been the primary purpose of the US Farm Bill: to encourage, subsidize, and regulate the food market, stabilizing pricing and providing ample food supply. Because when there's oversupply, people complain about food going to waste. When there's a lack of supply, people riot and governments collapse. Which would you really prefer?

Where exactly did you get those numbers and facts you're presenting? They don't seem to jibe with historical data I've found for US agriculture. In fact, they seem to be off by a full order of magnitude, as the transition appears to be fairly linear over 50 years, from 1910 to 1960.

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.o...
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...

Perhaps a better way to phrase my original point would be this:

"How many horses in 1915 were being used in commercial activities and how many are being used for those same activities in 2015"

Even ranchers no longer use horses as much, I know ranchers in Texas who have switched to helicopters, they are faster and better than horses.

http://smithhelicopters.com/pr...

http://channel.nationalgeograp...

http://fireaviation.com/2014/1...

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http://www.livinghistoryfarm.o...

1945 was when horses were finally supplanted by tractors, and of course it has only continued from there.

According to Manuel De Landa: http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/me...
"Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation. Certain standardizations, say, of electric outlet designs or of data-structures traveling through the Internet, may actually turn out to promote heterogenization at another level, in terms of the appliances that may be designed around the standard outlet, or of the services that a common data-structure may make possible. On the other hand, the mere presence of increased heterogeneity is no guarantee that a better state for society has been achieved. After all, the territory occupied by former Yugoslavia is more heterogeneous now than it was ten years ago, but the lack of uniformity at one level simply hides an increase of homogeneity at the level of the warring ethnic communities. But even if we managed to promote not only heterogeneity, but diversity articulated into a meshwork, that still would not be a perfect solution. After all, meshworks grow by drift and they may drift to places where we do not want to go. The goal-directedness of hierarchies is the kind of property that we may desire to keep at least for certain institutions. Hence, demonizing centralization and glorifying decentralization as the solution to all our problems would be wrong. An open and experimental attitude towards the question of different hybrids and mixtures is what the complexity of reality itself seems to call for. "

So, for example, if some centrally planned bureaucracy (say the USA in the 1930s) decides to have a nation-wide arts program, then you might see a lot of creativity there.
http://americanart.si.edu/exhi...
"In 1934, Americans grappled with an economic situation that feels all too familiar today. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration created the Public Works of Art Project--the first federal government program to support the arts nationally. Federal officials in the 1930s understood how essential art was to sustaining America's spirit. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program, which lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934, were encouraged to depict "the American Scene." The Public Works of Art Project not only paid artists to embellish public buildings, but also provided them with a sense of pride in serving their country. They painted regional, recognizable subjects--ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life--that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community and optimism."

Or about photography:
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.o...

Or other ways:
http://newdeal.feri.org/nchs/l...
"Activity in the arts was one aspect of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Established in April 1935 and directed by Harry Hopkins, its purpose was to provide socially useful work for the unemployed. WPA programs included the construction of public buildings such as schools, hospitals and courthouses; highways; recreational facilities such as athletic fields and parks and playgrounds; and conservation facilities such as fish hatcheries and bird sanctuaries. In addition four WPA arts projects ("Federal One") were established. "Federal One" not only provided work for artists, writers, musicians, and actors but nurtured young men and women who were embarking on a career in the arts during the Great Depression. Writers and artists such as Ralph Ellison and J

Many decades (or even over a century) ago, it wasn't like this. A kid finishing 8th grade (about 12-13 years old) had roughly the education of a typical high school graduate these days.

This is just wrong. In the area of math, you can look at studies like http://www.maa.org/features/faceofcalculus.html that show that the level of calculus education in high schools has tripled over the last 30 years, and has actually reached the point where a majority of incoming freshmen math students have already taken calc; in 1950, that was almost nonexistent at the high school level (let alone 8th grade). The state of science education in US middle schools and high schools was even more pathetic prior to the 1960s; a combination of Sputnik-inspired funding efforts and the legal demise of prohibitions on teaching of evolution and the like were among the key movers in stimulating science education. More generally, the AP program didn't even exist until the late 1950s.

One enlightening thing to do is to flip through math assessment tests like the American High School Math Exam from 1950 through present; the difference is pretty stark. In the 50s and 60s, the limit of difficulty is the kind of "a train leaves Chicago going X miles an hour while another leaves Los Angeles going Y miles an hour" questions that are more common for 7th graders (or even bright 5th graders) today.

And that's ignoring the fact that in 1960 over 60% of the population didn't even make it to high school graduation, compared with about 20% today; see for instance http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_12.html

Actually, what we need to do changes dramatically depending on whether it is natural - in which case we need to adapt in one way - or "human-caused" - in which case we need to adapt in other ways.

Many of the things suggested by the "climate change" crowd are actually DETRIMENTAL if the change is natural rather than "human-caused."

In that case, we're really stupid to say, "Not my fault!" and do nothing, because whatever the cause, when low-lying areas get inundated and crop failures start, it doesn't matter whose fault it is, it's going to be a mess.

In the early 20th century, the "dust bowl" phenomenon was caused by poor farming techniques that caused massive erosion. The proper response was to change farming techniques and, in many cases, change what crops were grown/rotated. Many of the proposed "solutions", however, were absolute bullcrap and again, in a number of cases, would have actually done more harm than good (but at the same time, became briefly popular).

And of course, there's plenty of shortsighted crap going on right now as well. For instance, the recent Obama administration ban on CFC-based inhaler delivery systems for drugs like Albuterol. There IS no proper replacement for these. As my friend said, "fuck you Obama, I need that to LIVE."

Yes, we should be researching alternatives. At the same time, the amount of CFC's emitted by humankind in a year is less than 1/100th that emitted by volcanic eruption, and the amount emitted by medical inhalers so small as to be statistically irrelevant. The ban is "feelgood" for Obama's unthinking cronies, while horrible for people who need their medications and now have to hunt for substitutes that are an order of magnitude less effective at best.

Airless tires have been around since the 1920s, at least... here's proof.