Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For example, the government subsidizes large agribusinesses instead of letting innovators and entrepreneurs find cheaper ways of providing people with food. The primary subsidy afforded to farmers is effectively assistance in paying insurance premiums. Insurance that exists to keep farms afloat during bad years in an environment that is highly volatile. The intent is not to make food cheaper (although that may happ…
> The primary subsidy afforded to farmers is effectively assistance in paying insurance premiums. But the vast majority of the subsidy goes not to small individual farmers, who might need such insurance (although even on the assumption that they do, private sector insurance companies and speculators could provide it more efficiently than the government does), but to large agribusinesses who have more than enough reso…
You are quite right that there is no preferential treatment for smaller farmers. It is simply for each dollar in premiums required, 60¢ is paid for by the farmer, 40¢ is paid by the government. It is true that those who pay the most in premiums (i.e. the largest farms) will receive the most in subsidies. It is designed to be a fair system without preference for any particular farm.
> large agribusinesses who have more than enough resources and diversity to self-insure.
On the flip side, small farmers have off-farm jobs so a loss on the farm is not likely to sink them. They still have their day job to pay the bills.
> private sector insurance companies and speculators could provide it more efficiently than the government does
I'm a tad bit skeptical. Private insurance has done well to serve individual events like a house fire or automobile accident, but when things happen on a grand scale like a major flood or widespread fire, it seems they fall back to government bailouts. The trouble with insurance on the farm is that it isn't usually just one farmer with failure. It is all the farmers at the same time. Private insurance hasn't proven a model to handle such cases, and if you're going to rely on the government to step in anyway as we've seen many times in the private insurance space when disaster strikes a large area, why not codify that action?
> It's hard to compete with large businesses that get government subsidies they don't actually need.
I am quite interested in your elaboration on this as I am not seeing how large businesses are advantaged by the subsidy in a way that small business are not. Proportionately, the subsidy given to each farmer is equal.