Crop prices are up for now. There is no arguing that.

If Iowa agriculture were a private company, the Des Moines Register reported, "the $33 billion in expected crop and livestock sales would top the $30 billion that Deere & Co. reported last year; more than quadruple the $9.2 billion in revenues generated by the Principal Financial Group of Des Moines; and exceed by seven times the $4.8 billion annual revenues of Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids."

Its corn and soybean sales alone would almost quadruple the Iowa state budget.

Why then, opponents of farm policy ask, shouldn't we cut agriculture policies?

Everyone involved in agriculture knows that nothing lasts forever - especially not prices in a volatile market, weather conditions, or real estate value - all major factors in a farmer's unpredictable future.

While crop and farmland prices are up, the farm crisis of the 1980s is not so far off that producers have forgotten - or neglected to tell their sons and daughters who might be inheriting the farm - how quickly these bubbles can burst.

Fortunately, we have learned from the past and have implemented a series of policies that will trigger a backstop should the bottom fall out again. Farmers who have invested in crop insurance will have a chance to rebound when tragedy strikes - as long as these risk management tools are kept in place.

Farm policy also works as insurance for the banker who is hesitant to lend so much money to a young farmer who is just starting out. This access to capital and the necessary inputs needed to make it through just one harvest is the catalyst addressing the issue of an aging rural population.

When young people are unable to make a living in rural America, they settle elsewhere, taking their families with them. "The scarcity of younger families on farms and in small towns leads to closed schools and lost business on main streets of small towns even as the surrounding farms enjoy record revenue," said the Des Moines Register.

And the pattern has taken its toll. Today, we are looking at a shrinking and aging rural population. For every one farmer under the age of 35, we have six over the age of 65.

And yet, the need to improve food production is daunting - on October 31, 2011, we will reach a global population of seven billion people. By 2050, we will have nine billion mouths to feed. In order to do this, we need to hold fast to the gains we've seen in past farm bills, rather than get caught up in one side of a market swing.

"The good times make farmers a political target amid growing budget deficits," continued the article in the Des Moines Register.

Because it's times like these when consumers forget that corn sold for less than $3 per bushel as recently as 2005, or that agriculture endured a severe depression just a quarter century ago, or that only 16 cents of every dollar we spend in the grocery store makes it back to the farmer.

So while crop prices may be up for now, who's to say what that means for the future? And if Congress cuts farm policy, leaving our farmers without a backstop, then when the prices do go down, we'll all go with them.

-- thehandthatfeeedsus.org