The government has very little to do with keeping food inexpensive, in fact through various forms of subsidies and tariffs they make some foods more expensive - sugar vs corn syrup.
Also:
Myth #3: Maintaining a cheap and stable food supply.
Some contend that food markets would fluctuate wildly without farm subsidies. In reality, food prices of both subsidized and unsubsidized crops are relatively stable. Given that the percentage of family budgets spent on food has dropped from 25 percent to 10 percent since 1933, any potential price instability would have an increasingly small impact on family budgets.[7] Even if price stabilization was necessary, price support programs have largely been replaced by commodity subsidies that stimulate overproduction rather than stabilize prices.
Nor do farm subsidies contribute to lower food costs. Two-thirds of food production is unsubsidized and thus relatively unaffected by subsidies. Of the remaining one-third, price reductions caused by crop subsidies are balanced by conservation programs that raise prices. Furthermore, food prices are based not only on crop prices, but also on food processing, transportation, and marketing costs. Bruce Babcock, professor of economics at Iowa State University, has calculated that eliminating farm subsidies would have virtually no effect on food prices.[8]
Given the level of agreement, you will have a hard time finding much disagreement from any source.
I would even suspect that a significant number of those who "disagree" disagree more on technicalities than on the general idea that the US's agricultural subsidies are a bad idea as implemented. For instance, I could argue:
1. A free market economy tends to surprisingly precisely match production to demand; producing extra costs you more than your competition is spending and tends to drive you out of business.
2. Food is subject to unpredictable random failures on a large scale.
3. It is better to have too much food than too little.
4. The economic effect of a subsidy is to cause overproduction. (As opposed to price fixing, which is to cause shortage. Rather a lot of verbiage is expended on the internet trying to explain away these two facts, yet the facts remain.)
Therefore, it may actually be desirable strategically for a country and even for the species to subsidize food production, in the hopes that the excess will offset the unpredictable disasters that a free market would tend to produce very little slack for. This will cost the society as a whole more than a "precise match" produced by the free market, but it only takes one bad harvest for this insurance to pay off bigtime. This could lead an economist to vote "disagree" on principle, even if they probably would agree the current subsidy is not an efficient way of accomplishing this goal. As others have pointed out, slamming this to a "true/false" question does erase many of the finer distinctions.
But other than those directly monetarily benefiting and those who don't understand the economics well enough to understand how bad these things are, you're not going to find much thoughtful support of these subsidies as they currently exist.
Also:
Myth #3: Maintaining a cheap and stable food supply. Some contend that food markets would fluctuate wildly without farm subsidies. In reality, food prices of both subsidized and unsubsidized crops are relatively stable. Given that the percentage of family budgets spent on food has dropped from 25 percent to 10 percent since 1933, any potential price instability would have an increasingly small impact on family budgets.[7] Even if price stabilization was necessary, price support programs have largely been replaced by commodity subsidies that stimulate overproduction rather than stabilize prices. Nor do farm subsidies contribute to lower food costs. Two-thirds of food production is unsubsidized and thus relatively unaffected by subsidies. Of the remaining one-third, price reductions caused by crop subsidies are balanced by conservation programs that raise prices. Furthermore, food prices are based not only on crop prices, but also on food processing, transportation, and marketing costs. Bruce Babcock, professor of economics at Iowa State University, has calculated that eliminating farm subsidies would have virtually no effect on food prices.[8]
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/06/how-farm-su...