You might think rural Ireland sits on a pot of gold. Each year, the pleasing sights and scents of its deep-green hills draw visitors from around the world—outnumbering by the millions Ireland’s resident population. Tourists pour through the countryside, spilling money everywhere. Then there’s Ireland’s booming economy, generating new wealth throughout the Emerald Isle. If that wasn’t enough, Irish farmers open their pockets and the European Union stuffs in €1.6 billion annually in agricultural subsidies.

Yet rural Ireland’s population stagnates. It’s the same now as in 1961, and shrinking as a share of the overall population. Working-age people leave for new opportunities. The rural population is disproportionately too young to move or too old to want to.

No nation has created—nor could—“rural development” programs able to halt the shift of population and economic activity from rural to urban areas. All attempts inevitably harm, rather than help, rural communities. Fewer people are needed to hew the wood, draw the water, till the fields, mine the earth, and fish the seas. Ever increasing productivity is what created today’s wealth, health and longevity. Attempts to reverse it leave everyone worse off.

Two approaches fuel rural development schemes: restrictions on technology and subsidies to draw people into what would otherwise be low-paying work with no takers. A compassionate society should help those confronted by economic change later in life, but these rural preservation programs typically become a bribe to divert rural young people from the opportunities of youth and trap them in low-skill work, sustained only by other people’s money. That creates political vulnerability and dependence. When money runs out or policy changes, folks now in their 40s, 50s, and 60s are trapped, with few skills. Instead of a gradual adjustment to change, communities are devastated overnight.

This havoc was wreaked throughout my part of the country, Atlantic Canada. Governments subsidized a massive overbuilding program in fishing plants and boats through the 1970s and 1980s. The fishing season and technology were limited so everyone could get in a few weeks work. That qualified workers for year-round Employment Insurance, leaving whole communities dependent on the government. Fish quality was devastated by old technology—including unloading fish by pitchfork. Atlantic Canada became an exporter of frozen blocks of damaged fish parts. The result was an economic and environmental disaster, which still reverberates through the region.

In contrast, Icelandic entrepreneurs modernized. They employed fewer people to produce high-quality, world-class products. The rural population shrank. Yet the sons and daughters who left would hardly trade their prosperous and interesting lives for a rough time spent fishing with outmoded technology, dependent on government cheques. Iceland has become a nation of immense optimism, with the publicly stated goal of becoming the richest on the planet. After decades of rural development programs, by contrast, despair pervades many Atlantic Canadian communities.

If Iceland is an international example of success, France demonstrates the folly of rural programs. The rich agricultural subsidies championed by France may be the world’s most heroic rural program. It’s a failure. The rural population has stagnated and declines as a share of the population. In a decade or so, demographic change will deprive France’s farm lobby of its political stranglehold, to the great relief of third world farmers.

That points to the collateral damage rural policies create. Rich world agricultural subsidies deprive third world farmers of a market that could power growth at home. Worse, many of the poorest have been forced off their land because they can’t compete against subsidized imports of rich-country food.

Canada is a light spender on rural programs, with exceptions, like the fishery. That outlook has served Canada well. For the most part, rural communities have been able to adjust to change gradually. Rural income has been low, but so is the rural cost of living. Many willingly sacrificed some wealth for the pleasures of rural life. Communities remained self-sufficient. This gradual adjustment is the secret to a healthy rural life. Heroic rural programs trap people in unsustainable jobs and, typically, damage even more vulnerable people elsewhere. In the end, the best rural program is no rural program.