[bradleyjg]

Not all food subsidies keep food prices down. For example, several crops have dedicated programs where the government keeps a significant portion of the annual crop off the open market as a means of keeping the price high (see the recent SCOTUS case about raisins). Then there's things like ethanol mandates which act as a subsidy to farmers but increase both the cost of food and the cost of gasoline. An even bigger problem are import tariffs and other forms of protectionism that again subsidize farmers but increase prices.

Food stamps are a far far better way of subsidizing food for the poor than through a rube goldberg system of supposedly helping the poor by giving millions to huge agribusinesses. So much so that I consider those types of arguments a bit of a red herring. Along with the "food security" argument -- there's no impeding worldwide embargo of the united states and if there were calories would be the least of our problems.