Farm Bills: Contemporary Issues

The enduring legacy of 1970s agricultural policy ensures that the vast majority of Farm Bill spending still goes toward crop subsidies and domestic food assistance, bolstered by a strong farm lobby and a resistance to change. Today, farmers receive subsidies in the form of direct payments, countercyclical payments, and crop insurance. Growers of specific commodity crops receive direct payments each year, regardless of market conditions. Currently, the Farm Bill focuses on five commodities: corn, cotton, soy, wheat, and rice. Farmers producing these crops received roughly $30 billion in direct payments between 1995 and 2009. There are also direct payment programs for sorghum, peanuts, barley, sunflower, canola, oats, flax, safflower, mustard seed, rapeseed, and sesame, but payments for these crops totaled less than $3 billion between 1995 and 2009. Growers also receive countercyclical payments if a commodity’s market price falls below a certain threshold in a given year. Between 1995 and 2009, 10 percent of farms in the United States received 74 percent of all subsidy payments, totaling $150 billion; many of these farms are owned by agribusiness conglomerates, such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland.