yeah but you need fertilizer and stuff to be available or you get bad harvests and no one wants to do it because its a bad investment. the other problem is being able to manage surplus properly instead of letting food rot (this takes education and possibly government stimulus into equipment like freeze dryers and other expensive equipment that can make... somewhat nutritious food that is reasonably popular and stores well).
because terrorism is bad, but its nothing to what can happen during a prolonged famine. Like seriously nothing. A civilization can disappear because of a famine.
Farming is seen as a risky profession that is fairly low pay for the labor involved, so it should be as easy as possible for the people doing it. Then you get more farmers and lower prices plus more stability because there will be experianced people around if you need to switch crops because of a rot/plague.
AS shown with a arab spring, I think the root cause of many civil war is food prices and availability. Nothing mobilizes people like the thought that they can get food. And there is just SO MANY PEOPLE.
In america, the soldiers are out numbered 300:1 by the population if they stop getting food, and realistically the government services would totally fall apart once there is a severe problem.
Any institution will be replaced by something that can get food more efficiently once there is a big shortage, literally by 100% unified vote.
Also, water is even more important. The phosphate fertilizers have been destroying water pretty good. There is a big danger to over banning farming chemicals, its really not a joke (damages fish ecosystem, probobly involved in global warming, and possibly future health problems from having abnormal amounts of algee making whatever they make around).
and I am not an expert on the statistics but to me, it looks like they just out source the criminal activity, with nearly no loss of supply, while we pay for higher food prices, have a unstable food market and have environmental problems (algal bloom). Seriously USA food prices WTF?!!! And we just end up paying more for border security and its probobly not doing much save for some popcorn headlines once in a while.