Are you trolling? Here is a classic paragraph from Catch-22. “His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbours sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counselled one and all, and everyone said “Amen.”
The existing situation is even more stupid than paying alfalfa farmers not to grow alfalfa.
If you’re forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, paying alfalfa farmers is where it’s at. Obviously better water management would be the sensible choice, but that hasn’t been on the table for decades.
This actually happened back in the day. The US was originally an agrarian society and farmers held a lot of political power. Today farming makes up 1-2% of the economy. However, back then the farmers faced a problem: If you make too much food, prices fall, and you go bankrupt. Farmers would then control the supply of food by not farming to keep prices up. Certain elements within the government were sympathetic and would pay farmers not to plant to help control the problem the market put them in.
This developed a problem as people were paid to not produce and when droughts happened, there was not enough food to go around - a critical failure for a civilization. A problem that is a relevant lesson today as politicians had used faulty economics to try to fix the problem.
Modern farm policy is wasteful, and deserves criticism, but it turned the problem on its head by subsidizing farmers to produce as much as possible. We've gone from occasionally starving to death to having medical problems from eating too much. A good problem to have.