what point were you trying to prove?
Some people think a country can be made prosperous by more agriculture, or more people working in agriculture. It's quite idiotic. But of course Phknrocket might be trying to prove some other point, I dunno.
Well, there is no doubt that increased ag employment would help rural America. And while the correlation is absolutely clear, a robust ag sector is vital to our economy. We have some of the best farm land on earth and we'd be stupid not to take advantage of that simply because somebody in a third world country could produce less vigorous, less nutritionally balanced foods more cheaply.
The other problem comes down to infrastructure: While the massive move to cities has created countless jobs just by that movement (building homes, infrastructure, highways, etc.), in the long term it is an inefficient use of resources.. especially in rural areas where the infrastructure was built for a larger population.
Roads and schools are two great examples of inefficient use of infrastructure. People look at population growth as the driver of economic growth. More people means more consumers which means more potential for profit. We look at shrinking populations as having the opposite effect on economies.. and we somehow fool ourselves into thinking that we need to maintain the rural infrastructure that has a lot of excess capacity.
The main reason is that building more appropriate and more efficient levels of infrastructure has high up front costs that rural residents are wont to oppose because their property taxes are likely already disproportionally high compared to their incomes.
"Subsidizing" rural America to a point will likely have benefits for the economy as a whole. We can use existing infrastructure and it keeps communities together, which reduces crime.
Also, with the advent of the internet, people can "telecommute" and many rural areas are now home to a surprising amount of high tech industry.
Some of the wins for rural Minnesota recently have been the construction of a Windmill factory in SW Minnesota as well as several small biotech companies in rural areas that can operate thanks to excellent rural high speed internet connectivity. (Japan looked to us as a model when they wanted to upgrade and expand their rural fiber optics network).
Of course, eventually nearly all Americans will live in medium and large cities with only small numbers living in rural areas. Rural communities have accepted they won't have any kind of major population growth.. but rather, they are focusing on quality of life for the people already living there and using technology to allow people to stay and still be productive in today's economy. Preservation and development through technology is the strategy rather than vainly attempting to attract all sorts of new residents.. which inevitably fails nearly every time.
