[rcxdude]

This tends to more to do with food supply security and costs of distribution than anything else (as well as political opposition to socialising food supply).

i.e. if we want to avoid food shortages, we need to overproduce the raw goods and therefore waste some. Transporting and transforming those raw goods into food that someone can eat still costs money, it's not just so farmers can get paid. We probably should still actually make sure no-one goes hungry, but that does actually involve some cost and effort on the part of the government, and the challenge there is mainly political elements who don't like the idea of someone getting something for free.

[ajsnigrutin]

Yep, that's why we pay farmers to keep half their fields empty, because in case we need those fields (eg. war somewhere), we still have farmers with all the machines and infrastructure needed to produce food, that can expand onto the now-empty fields.