The Government and Alternative Fuels

In these trying times, I hear my neighbors talk about government regulation of fuel prices and subsidies. Subsidies are, in my opinion, not the answer. Take farm subsidies for example. We pay farmers subsidies to keep prices low for consumers, then we pay farmers not to plant all their fields to keep prices higher so the grain they do sell fetches a higher price, then we pay subsidies to support an ethanol industry that drives demand for grain and forces prices even higher. So, by logical reasoning we (because the government is funded by us) pay three times so that we can have higher prices at the supermarket. The system is broken. I believe we should subsidize the alternative fuel industry even more to drive the demand up for the ingredients for ethanol. This increased demand would then be the farm subsidy because farmers would be paid more for the product they produce and not paid not to produce. When ethanol or some other non-fossil-based energy system is a fully established business and we have an oversupply of grain and we need to cut back production, there is nothing that says the government cannot go back to paying the farmers not to plant. This is obviously oversimplified but I think the premise is sound.