Lamont, you say, "These "small" farms are worth $35,000 per cow + land and equipment."
So what is your point?   Yes livestock and land and equipment are expensive!  Thank goodness there are people willing to put out that sort of money so that they can farm.  

"Protected class?"   You must be talking about the corporately owned factory farms as opposed to the relatively small scale family farms - which have been steadily going the way of the dodo bird for decades now.  

And even if some farmers are indeed earning a decent income, why in the world would anybody have a problem with that?   I certainly don't begrudge them earning a good dollar.  You think farmers should live in poverty so the rest of us can eat dirt cheap?  That's certainly not how I look at it.

I just hope JT doesn't flip flop on this one.