"thereby maintaining high capacity for when it's needed."
How so? We're talking about acres not farmers. Small farms can go under and larger farms will take over working the land. We saw that in the 80s. The land being conserved is generally lower capacity anyways (they aren't going enroll the high producing acres).
So it might not contradict in theory, but the evidence from the current situation seems to support that the capacity is not valued and only the price control reason is. Is there any support for the idea that it's about having reserve capacity to utilize? Has it ever been utilized?
How so? We're talking about acres not farmers. Small farms can go under and larger farms will take over working the land. We saw that in the 80s. The land being conserved is generally lower capacity anyways (they aren't going enroll the high producing acres).
So it might not contradict in theory, but the evidence from the current situation seems to support that the capacity is not valued and only the price control reason is. Is there any support for the idea that it's about having reserve capacity to utilize? Has it ever been utilized?