Climate and Agriculture

NSAC says Republicans Increased PLC Reference Prices. They didn’t.

/ brad4farmjustice / Leave a comment

An Open Letter to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

“He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in!” Edwin Markham, from “Outwitted” 

Introduction

In your piece, “Examining the House Agriculture Committee’s Reconciliation Bill,” (June 4, 2025, https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/examining-the-house-agriculture-committees-reconciliation-bill/,) you write that the House Agriculture Committee’s Reconciliation Bill” “boasts an immediate increase to reference prices for each covered commodity under the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program by 10 to 20%, in addition to an annual 0.5% adjustment beginning in 2031, up to 115% of the statutory reference price.”  And you are boasting this too, but as a bad thing.  And you’re relying on FarmDoc Daily in your analysis.

Doing the Math Correctly: Adjusting for Inflation

But there’s a problem here.  None of you did the math correctly.  None of you adjusted for inflation.  When you do that with regard to the PLC program, then the benefits have gone down every year, and they will continue to go down in the Republican bill.  So yes, there’s an increase in Reference Prices from 2024 to 2025, for example, but prior to that the 2014 statutory Reference Prices, (continued in 2018,) have fallen considerably, to just 77% of the 2014 level.  Adjusted for inflation in 2014 dollars. So the new 2025 levels are actually significantly lower than 2014, with corn, for example, at only 83% of 2018.  And this reduced level then goes down every year, 2026-2030 for the same reason.  You point to the “annual 0.5% adjustment beginning in 2031,” and call it “115% of the statutory reference price.” But CBO projects a 2% rate of inflation for those years, so the 0.5% increase is actually a 1.5% decrease.  In calling it a 115% increase, (113.5% for corn,) you’re comparing the new nominal 2035 Reference Price with the old nominal 2014 Reference Price.  But if you adjust for inflation, (i.e. in 2014 dollars,), corn is only 70% of the 2014 level, as is oats, barley and grain sorghum.  Most others are not far behind.

The Larger Contexts of Market Management Policy Reductions, the Full Costs of Production, the Farm Economy, Agribusiness, and the Republican Party

What makes you think that Republicans would ever do anything significant to help farmers?  Republicans have a long history of making things worse, including for corn, wheat, cotton rice and soybeans.  With that in mind, there are other problems here as well, such as the lack of an adequate context for the changes and impacts.  In creating and supporting the PLC program, (2014 & 2018 farm bills,) Congress set reference prices well below the full costs of production in most cases, (i.e. excepting rice and peanuts).  That’s where the downward trend lines start, at the low 2014 levels.  I computed this for the initial standards 10 years ago, (2014, 2015,) and I’ve now computed it for the earlier phase, through 2025.  I’ve also taken 2025 full cost figures and projected them ahead using CBO’s projected rates of inflation.  Again all crops except peanuts and rice are consistently below full costs, (and peanuts and rice fall below full costs at times, as their Reference prices fall year after year).

Here I note that you translate the Republican farmer benefits from things like Reference Prices, (i.e. in dollars per bushel,) into billions of dollars.  You refer to an increase of “roughly $52 billion over 10 years.”  My calculations are based upon CBO projections of PLC participation rates, PLC historic or “payment yields,” and market prices, as well as projected full cost figures.  I look at just 6 crops, corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, oats and grain sorghum, because those are the only crops for which CBO has provided projections of participation rates.  I used an example where market prices fell to 5% below reference prices, where the PLC subsidies clearly kick in.  Figures are adjusted for inflation in 2025 dollars.  What I find at those price levels is a reduction of $237 billion below full cost estimates for the 6 crops, for 2025-2035.  (Of course there were billions in reductions during the earlier phases as well.). Then, when PLC subsidies are calculated, the reductions are reduced to just $164 billion below zero.  

So the subsidies figure to be $43 billion in the example. Of course, this would all be bigger if I had comparable projections for the additional crops.  

Ok, so net benefits at $164 billion below zero.  Here again, the money, (in this case the big billions,) looks very different when you adjust for inflation, and place the figures in the larger context of economic realities.  

You further argue that “very few farms will benefit from the bill’s most expensive agriculture provisions,” including, for example, “Farmers growing fruits and vegetables – among them, many small and direct-market farms.” And, you add the specific context, of how “78 percent of counties stand to see a net reduction in federal nutrition benefits” from the farm bill changes.  But what my math has shown, is that the Republican programs massively reduce benefits for the farmers using the PLC program. 

Us Against Them

Strategically and politically, in making these arguments, you’re emphasizing a division between the many farmers in programs like PLC, (falsely said to have increased Republican support,) and sustainable, local farmers, fruit and vegetable farmers, and poor people.  It’s them against the PLC farmers.  What I’ve shown, however, is that you’re blaming farmer victims, and that you are therefore pitting victim against victim. It’s an “us against them” mentality.  In this you lump farmers and Republicans together, as if they’re close allies.  By your criteria, most farmers in many midwestern states should vote Republican.  So I guess you’re saying that, with regard to economic interests, Republicans should win the rural vote.  It’s a recipe for over all farm interests, (in sustainability AND justice,) to be divided and conquered.  It’s a major part of how those advocating on farm issues have become siloed, doing their own thing separately.  That’s according to your math, and that of sources like FarmDoc Daily.  That’s according to not adjusting for inflation, and not considering the larger economic, strategic and political context.

The Historical Context Behind the NSAC’s False Paradigm: What the Evidence Shows

There is, however, an additional and much larger economic, strategic and political context left out of your analysis.  This is that you don’t account for how agribusiness will benefit from the bill.  This is an issue that reaches back to the origins of major campaigning by the Sustainable Agriculture Movement during the 1990s, following decades of activism on the issues of economic distributive farm justice by the Family Farm (Farm Justice) Movement.  With help from large funding sources, sustainability rose up and justice sank down, (with help from Republicans ending market management farm programs in the 1996 farm bill, ‘free’ trade agreements that assaulted farm justice globally, the rural populist Democrats switching sides to join Republicans in “greened up versions” of the 1996 bill, and a major reduction in the funding of farm justice organizations.  

 I was there, with others, in 1995 when NSAC’s predecessor, the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (NCSA) was being formed, (participating on committees of the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and the new national umbrella group). I spoke out in favor of the policies of economic justice, which were being neglected by the top leaders of the movement. Specifically, I called for the groups to take a united stand for adequate levels of the Price Floor/Supply Management programs, (no subsidies needed). These changes would have ended the massive agribusiness/CAFO subsidies, reduce acreages of corn and soybeans, and support crops like oats and barley, (which in turn support the use of pasture and hay, grass, alfalfa and clover, in resource conserving crop rotations). 

NCSA rejected these changes. Later, however, mainline churches convened a meeting to take a second look at these issues, however, and the proposals to end agribusiness/CAFO subsidies were supported. Shortly afterwards, however, key leaders back home blackballed this agreement, and that has been NSAC’s position up to today. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress ended the Price Floor programs, (signed by President Clinton,) leading to 8 of the 9 lowest corn and soybean prices in history, 1997-2005. Additionally, as billions of additional dollars were transferred from feed grain and soybean farms to CAFOs, damage to sustainable crop rotations has continued, with farms such as here in Iowa losing more livestock diversity, to then lose more of the diversity of sustainable livestock crops, pasture hay and oats. 

These cheap conventional prices also lowered the standards undergirding organic premiums, and the competition in stores against those sales. This occurred for dairy as well, as those low price floors were ended. Local sales of meat and dairy here in my town, (after investing in infrastructure for processing and marketing,) didn’t last very long under those conditions. The massive loss of livestock and “livestock crop” diversity since 1950 has also led to a massive loss of the infrastructure for diversity, on farms, in rural communities, and across rural regions. (Loss of fences and livestock facilities, loss of support services and equipment including large animal vets. My elevator quit grinding feed and quit buying oats.) That too hurts organic farmers. At the same time, surviving farmers continued increasing the number of days they worked off the farm and the amount of non-farm money they made, increasing the availability of off-farm capital, and decreasing the availability of the labor needed for diversity. This all contributed to the failed system we have today, and to the tremendous problems of agriculture, including the environmental and health problems.

Your Paradigm is Too Small

The issues here are clearly systemic. They’re based upon an inadequate paradigm, a false dominant narrative, (actually interrelated false conservative and progressive narratives that have deep roots in the farm subsidy question). The view of the Sustainable Agriculture Movement during the 1990s, (like the one you’ve put forth here,) was based upon a belief that the trend away from sustainability was caused by greatly rewarding crops like corn and soybeans with “commodity subsidies.” The logic behind this claim is that you only need to look at subsidies and spending to know what caused the problems. From that perspective you then conclude that corn and soybean farms have been greatly rewarded, leading to all of the problems. 

By that same logic you only need to look at spending on SNAP subsidies to know that SNAP recipients are the biggest winners of the farm bills. Additional aspects of the logic of this false paradigm would then lead to conclusions such as: SNAP recipients and Big Food are on the same side, and SNAP recipients are likely among the biggest lobbyists funding Congress. (These absurdly false claims are directly equivalent to those made about “industrial farmers,” such as those growing corn and soybeans.) 

In both cases, the paradigm is far too small. You need to look at the larger economic and policy context to understand what farm and food subsidies accomplish. As it turns out, SNAP recipients are poor, and SNAP has been inadequate, in that context, to prevent many children and adults from going hungry. The missing policy context is that of market management. For SNAP recipients, that includes low minimum wage floors, (projected to fall into the $4 range in 2026, adjusted for inflation in the original 2009 dollars). Other factors include weak labor laws, lack of full employment policies and programs, lack of fair trade agreements, and lack of adequate anti-trust policies and enforcement.

The same holds for the logic of NCSA’s and NSAC’s interpretations of farm subsidies. The main specific market management policies and programs, Price Floors and Acreage Reductions, were reduced, more and more, 1953-1995, then ended. Along the way, market prices dropped more and more, net farm income went low and stayed low, and similar results are found from a list of major economic indicators. Meanwhile, subsidies didn’t start for corn until 1961, after prices had already dropped a lot. Soybean commodity subsidies didn’t start until 1998, (i.e. no Deficiency Payments). So there were had been no subsidy compensations for soybeans as of the 1990s when NSAC leaders blamed subsidies for over-rewarding soybeans. 

I examined corn and soybean prices and subsidies for 1980-2005 using percent of parity. This enabled me to directly compare what happened to them with what happened to other enterprises that are important to resource conserving crop rotations. As it turns out, by this standard, corn and soybeans made less, (prices plus subsidies,) than cattle, dairy, hay and oats, (adding in subsidies only for corn, soybeans and oats). All of these crop and livestock prices went downward during the period, however, (and from 1953 to today). So in fact, sustainable crop rotation enterprises were more rewarded, (less reduced,) than corn and soybeans during this period that played such a major role in affecting farming systems. The finding here is that the claim that corn and soybeans more incentivized than sustainable enterprises is false. The increase in corn and soybean acreages actually resulted from the increased penalization of corn and soybeans over the decades and the greater penalization in comparison to the penalization of other farming enterprises. 

The same holds for fruits and vegetables. Market prices for 45 fruits and vegetables, (counting no subsidies,) were consistently lower than market prices for corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton, (adding in subsidies for these 5 crops,) measured as percent of parity, (1953-2014 or 2015). (Here again, all crop prices fell, more and more over the time period.) So fruits and vegetables, (not corn and soybeans,) were more incentivized, (less reduced). Here again, farmers raising the five subsidized crops got less and less, even with the added subsidies. 

Further Implications

In pitting farmers against SNAP recipients there are other factors to be considered. It’s not fair that farmers should be singled out to be penalized with reduced subsidies in order to subsidize the hungry. Instead, they should receive living wages and other market management benefits, (including healthcare benefits,) which would significantly reduce the need for SNAP spending. Likewise, it’s not fair that farmers raising food products should be signaled out to be paid less, (including fruit and vegetable farmers,) in order to subsidize SNAP recipients through the marketplace. Living wages, for example, need to be high enough to compensate for fair farm prices, and minimum farm price floors should be high enough to compensate for workers, (producing inputs and items needed for farming and living,) being paid living wages. 

There is also another factor which seems to be known only by the Family Farm (Farm Justice) Movement. I refer here to the top side of market management farm programs, maximum Price Ceilings to trigger the release of stored Reserve Supplies, as needed to prevent price spikes which raise the cost of food and other items. This protects the hungry poor, as well as livestock and poultry farmers using grain, and also related industries. This is especially important in this time of climate volatility. NSAC should support these programs.

Finally, with adequate Price Floors and Supply Reductions, no subsidies are needed, so these farm justice programs free up lots of money for SNAP and programs for conservation, local food, etc.

Conclusion

From within this larger, more evidence based, logical and adequate paradigm, it turns out that we’re really all united, local, organic, and conventional farmers, and environmental, hunger, anti-CAFO, and public health interests. We’re united, not divided, in the larger farm justice paradigm which holds agribusiness accountable, and which ends the harmful CAFO subsidies that corn, soybean and oather farmers have been forced to pay.

For Further Reading

Brad Wilson, “Republicans Reduce Farm Program Benefits, Again,” Family Farm Justice: 6/28/25,https://familyfarmjustice.me/2025/06/28/republicans-reduce-farm-program-benefits-again/. Includes a reference list to additional sources.

Brad Wilson, “Subsidized Crops vs Vegetables,” SlideShare: Brad Wilson, 11/14/20,https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/subsidized-crops-vs-vegetables-pt-i/239258118.

Brad Wilson, “Subsidized Crops vs Fruits,” SlideShare: Brad wilson, 11/14/20,https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/subsidized-crops-vs-fruits-pt-2/239258054.

Brad Wilson, “How CAFOs are Subsidized,” YouTube: Fireweed Farm, 4/30/25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IaANx08G8&list=PLA1E706EFA90D1767&index=4.

Slide shows on the dozens of farm subsidy myths. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZIOiwv1Nr6jn9SsnE62z1P_hitZKTBaD

Brad Wilson, “Cap Farm Subsidies at $250,000, or $25,000, or $0?”, 7/18/15, https://znetwork.org/zblogs/cap-farm-subsidies-at-250000-or-25000-or-0/.

Brad Wilson, “Don’t Grow Clover, Hay, Oats, (Corn)? De-Bunking a Farmer Bashing Myth,” ZSpace: Brad Wilson, 3/12/13, https://znetwork.org/zblogs/don-t-grow-clover-hay-oats-corn-de-bunking-a-farmer-bashing-myth-by-brad-wilson/.

Climate, Carbon & Grazing: Expanding Seth Itzkan’s Thought Experiment

/ brad4farmjustice / Leave a comment

Introduction

This was originally written as a response to a post by Seth Itzkan on COMFOOD in 2019. It’ s a a response to his piece, “Regenerative Grazing can Offset 98% of Auto Emissions in Vermont.” This was originally at: https://www.soil4climate.org/ruminations/regenerative-grazing-in-vermont-can-offset-all-auto-emissions-in-the-statebut I can’t find it today, though I have a copy.

Seth has given us a great thought experiment, especially since so much focus has been on CAFOs as representing livestock production in general, leading to general rejection of livestock production, (“the baby with the bathwater,” over generalized focus on “the cow,” not “the how”). 

Though I’ve criticized rapid simplifications related to climate discussions (such as based upon general misunderstandings of livestock system)s, we do need (adequate) generalizations to educate the public. I see value in this for stimulating thought in the Food and Environmental Movements.

Related to this first point is that the thought experiment reverses a lot of the general sense of agriculture that I find in the urban Food Movement. I’ve argued that there’s an urban and regional bias on key issues, (and the vegan bias is also very relevant here). Mark Bittman has referred to Iowa as the “ground zero” of something or other, and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has referred to Iowa politicians as necessarily the bad ones. Really though we’ve had some of the very best ones, much better than her, on the very biggest farm bill issues, and we have a long history as the center of farm bill reform of these issues, which the Food Movement has not yet come close to achieving. 

For example, local food can be a really big factor in agriculture where there are enormous cities, but very little good farmland available, (but it can’t be a major solution for most farming states, where this is reversed). For urban areas, there’s a huge market for local food with relatively tiny competition. 

So in this interesting little thought experiment, some very urban states would have a very hard time achieving positive results, (cleaning up their acts, being responsible “in my back yard,”) while it’s easy (technically, if not politically,) for farming states in the “fly over” regions to take this major step against climate change. So I think the thought experiment is quite helpful in stimulate alternative kinds of thinking, where the “baby” can be imagined as awesome and fully grown, and not at all a mere example of necessarily filthy “bath water” in the fly over regions.

Seth’s Thought Experiment

The thought experiment is based upon this study of grazing and carbon sequestreation: Paige L. Stanley, Jason E. Rowntree, David K. Beede, Marcia S. DeLonge, Michael W. Hamm, “Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems,”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338?via%3Dihub. Then he uses 2012 data from USDA for acres of grazing in Vermont in 2012, (https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/848B9907-90DE-3833-B54B-3F72039D90CB) and calculates how much carbon would be sequestered at the rate found in the study above. A third piece of data used is the amount of carbon a passenger car emits in a year, (EPA: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle).

That then led to a concluding figure of a 98% offset.

Brad’s Expansion of Data and Findings

For anyone interested in other states, the pastureland data is also found here, and for all states and the United States, (2012, “States by Table,” “Table 8,” scroll down to the second section, pp. 316-323): (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_2_US_State_Level/st99_2_008_008.pdf). I also find that the auto registration for all states is here on a single chart, but for 2017: (https://www.statista.com/statistics/196010/total-number-of-registered-automobiles-in-the-us-by-state/ ). (2017 shows slightly fewer Vermont registrations than 2016, so Seth’s results change from slightly negative to slightly positive.)

One technicality may be that the pasture statistic includes woodland grazing. 

Another thought is that there was much more grazing for most farming regions in the past. For example, in 1950, for Vermont, “Land Pastured, Total was 1,704,107 acres, 9 times the amount of 2012. (See 1954 census, choose a state, (http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/censusParts.do?year=1954 ) then Table 1, “Farms, acreage, and value: Censuses of 1920 to 1954,” then it’s in column 2, 1950 (scroll down). 

For Vermont, however, a lot of that may have gone into woodland over the years. (I’m reminded of Wendell Berry’s discussion in The Unsettling of America about urban oriented people having this as a goal. Quoting David Budbill, “Down-country people come up here [to Vermont], buy a 30-acre meadow, then when you ask them what they want to do with it, they look at you like some kind of war criminal and say, ‘Why, nothing! We want to leave it just the way it is!’” (p. 28) Berry argued that they were avoiding the question of use, denying the larger context of how they actually do live the rest of their lives. Of course, those trees might sequester more carbon, but they don’t provide the food that so many are worried about for the future.)

It’s very different here in Iowa. First, the thought experiment method for 2012 yields much more powerful results for Iowa (net carbon of 1,964,354, using 2016 auto registrations) than Vermont. Since 1950, much of the land went into cropland, (not forest,) and most farms have lost all livestock. Bringing livestock back out of CAFOs and onto most farms using enhanced grazing could lead to very positive results, (depending upon how it compares with corn and soybeans). With the 1950 pasture figure net carbon for Iowa is 11,097,520.

These simple calculations for 2012 show strong positive results for 6 states of the north and south plains, and Missouri (like Iowa, in the cornbelt) (2017 auto registrations). Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, (cornbelt,) which have more cars, yield negative results (much bigger than Vermont for 2016 auto use). All of this turns very positive with the 1950 data for “Land Pastured, Total.” For example, Illinois, which was behind (-4,124,736 tons) for 2012, (Chicago!) moves ahead by 4,181,666 tons with 1950 “Land Pastured, Total.”

On the other hand, for smaller, more urban states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Maryland, the results are quite bad, and even if they could go back to the 1950 numbers, that wouldn’t fix it. Curiously, Rhode Island (-510,759 tons with 2012 pasture and 2017 autos,) ends up beside Montana (+60,590,509 tons) on the list of auto registrations. California, New York, and Florida are quite positive with the 1950 pasture numbers, but only California is positive with the 2012 pasture numbers. So changes to farming systems are key.

Concluding Thoughts

There’s a lot of additional thought to be stimulated here. Hay production is one consideration. Mark Honeyman has argued that alfalfa could make up 30% of a hogs diet. Eastern Iowa also had quite a bit of pasture farrowing in past years. 2012 production of hay in Iowa is only 31% of 1950. 

More studies like the grazing study cited by Seth would be great.

You Can’t Fix Sustainability Without Justice

/ brad4farmjustice / 1 Comment

Author’s Note: This paper presents background material in support of my slide show series on “The Decline of Agriculture” in 42 counties in Iowa, (with summaries of these counties for each Congressional District, and with a survey of all of Iowa). County level data from the Census of Agriculture is used to show how cheaper and cheaper farm prices, leading to reductions in the farm economy have forced farmers to subsidize animal factories, (Confined Animal Feeding Operations, CAFOs,) with cheap, below cost feed ingredients. This farmer-paid subsidization has then led to the further penalty where most farmers have lost all value-added livestock and poultry. Without livestock, most farmers have then lost the sustainable “livestock crops,” grass pastures, alfalfa and clover hay, and the nurse crops for these, like oats. These “Environmental Impacts” are the focus of Part 1 of my surveys. 25 additional state summary surveys are also being developed. These are the core, systemic policy issues for agriculture and the environment. 

In the map above, the darker counties are the ones surveyed.  Links to the slide shows are found farther below. A preliminary survey for Wisconsin is found here. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3719393414781721&type=3. Part 2 slide shows focus on “Farmer Impacts” (see below).

Understanding the Core Environmental Policies for Agriculture

From the crisis of the Great Depression, the Farm Bill was invented and implemented, fairly slowly, during the 1930s to 1941. At it’s core, it was a market management solution to at least six decades of prior crisis caused by cheap farm prices. Minimum farm price floors, (similar in principle to minimum wage,) were implemented and backed up by supply reductions, as needed, to balance supply and demand. For consumers and industry, price ceilings were used, to trigger the release of reserve supplies during times of drought and shortage.

The second national crisis of World War II led Congress to raise minimum farm price floors to “living wage” levels, 85% or 90% of parity with a goal of prices at 100% of parity. This was seen as a government managed, private sector economic stimulus, (not a government spending stimulus,) and was passed, in part, through the banking committees.

The farm program worked well, raising farm prices to “living wage” levels, and at minimal or no cost, even making money for the government through 1948. Agriculture as a whole achieved 100% of parity every year, 1942-52. 

The agribusiness buying corporations were forced to pay farmers $1.2 trillion more, (1942-52 vs. averages from 1920-32). 

For 1933-1960, an estimated 99% of the impact was from minimum farm price floors, and only 1% from farm subsidies.

Congress then lowered minimum farm price floors, more and more, 1953-1995, and then ended them, (1996-2023). This had devastating impacts on farmers, rural communities and the rural environment. Over time it forced farmers to massively subsidize the loss of their value added livestock to CAFOs, with cheap feed ingredients, (below full cost levels most of the time at least since 1981). With cheaper and cheaper prices, net farm income fell low and stayed low, even with higher yields and with implementation of the major farm subsidy programs. These started in 1961 for corn, wheat and sorghum, 1962 for barley, 1964 for cotton, 1976 for rice, 1982 for oats, and 1998 for soybeans. The evidence is very clear that farmers were penalized toward these changes, not rewarded toward them.

Iowa, though it has had some of the very biggest subsidies, also seems to be the state with the biggest reductions, resulting in the biggest net reductions over the long haul (net = market reductions below parity standards + subsidies). Iowa is the biggest farm bill loser, as is the cornbelt region.

Nationally the reductions since 1953 add up to trillions of dollars, so these are huge issues affecting agriculture, and affecting agriculture’s impact on climate.

US net farm income in 2016, (adjusted for inflation and including farm subsidies,) was less than 50% of what it had been during the parity years of 1942-52. Net Farm Income for Iowa in 2016 was less than 35% of what it had been for 1949-1952, (the earliest years for which data is available). 

That’s in spite of much increased yields for crops like corn and soybeans.

Nearly 60% of farmers were run out of business during the massive reductions in farm income. Losses of farms livestock and poultry poultry occurred at an even faster rate, especially for hogs, dairy and poultry. According to data from the Census of Agriculture, between 1950 and 2017, Iowa lost 97% of its farms with hogs land pigs, 98% of it’s farms selling poultry products, and 99% of its farms with milk cows. It also lost 86% of its farms with cattle and calves and 88% of its farms with sheep.

Losing livestock from farms was very damaging to the environment, leading to our poor water quality, contributing to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and to climate change. That’s because, without farms with livestock, we also lost farms with the sustainable “livestock crops” like grass pastures, alfalfa and clover hay, and nurse crops like oats and barley. Farms with these sustainable crops were also lost at a much faster rate than the loss of farmers and the loss of crop farmers. For example, according to Census of Agriculture Data, between 1950 and 2017, Iowa lost 82% of it’s farms with hay, 96% of its farms with pasture on cropland, and 99% of its farms with oats.

As a result of these losses, farmers have lost much of the economic viability for these sustainable crops and diverse crop rotations, which are especially needed on hills and near streams. These areas have been increasingly planted to corn and soybeans. We’ve then seen increasing destruction of the infrastructure for sustainability on farms, in small towns, and across rural regions. 

A related factor is that, while 92% of Iowa farm operators reported farming as their primary occupation in 1950, by 1997 only 61% of the remaining farmers did, and for some counties, less than half. And while only 7% of Iowa farm operators worked 200 or more days off the farm in 1950, by 2017 31% of the surviving farm operators did. These changes were reflected in farming’s share of total farm household income. While in the early 1960s, when USDA’s data series on this begins the farm portion of total farm household income was nearly 50%, this figure fell to just 12% by the 1990s and 11% for 2000-2009, even with the start of the biofuels boom. Those temporarily higher prices continued for corn, soybeans and rice through 2013, and the farm share of farm household income rose for 2010-2019, but only to 20%.

I’ve documented many these changes away from sustainability for Iowa, for 42 counties in Iowa, and with summaries of this data for each of the 4 Congressional districts in Iowa, (9+9+12+12=42 county summaries + 4 District summaries). 

(See data charts here, organized by the new Congressional Districts: The Decline of Farming in 9 Counties of Iowa’s 1st Congressional District: Environmental Impacts [10 slide shows]: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11Ii_bwimdYxDjC-pyuYKm3mYLVGJfsXF; The Decline of Farming in 9 Counties of Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District: Environmental Impacts [10 slide shows]: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WUkjXENDtc0XimXxzDA47adZ-6KqHXxc; The Decline of Farming in 12 Counties of Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District: Environmental Impacts [13 slide shows]: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1a_muA-EeV8nX_mjqzCIfjowjcGLr3PkL; The Decline of Farming in 12 Counties of Iowa’s 4th Congressional District: Environmental Impacts [13 slide shows]: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/185K4Wiu43x_rmWmhXPY6EGItYJHqay0b. For all of Iowa [99 counties,] seehttps://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/the-decline-of-farming-in-iowa-pt-1pdf. See Iowa charts below.)

Examination of the acreages for these crops shows more clearly how they affect crop rotations. Without the diversity of the sustainable livestock crops, most of Iowa has been reduced to a simple corn-soybeans rotation, (corn-following-soybeans,) leading to damage to the environment, especially on hills and near streams. The slide shows compare the changes in these acreages, shown in pie charts, to various crop rotations, (including acreages for soybeans and “other,”) jumping from 1950 to 1969 to 1992 to 2017.

Compare the two-year, corn-soybeans rotation, above, with the five-year rotation shown below, which has been popular among organic farmers in Iowa. 

Compare that with the acreage results for the state of Iowa in 1950 and 2017, below.

Iowa’s diverse pie pieces have shrunk! Iowa has lost the possibility for sustainable crop rotations.

The increasing role of off-farm jobs and income for those farm operators who have survived, and as the percentage of young farmers declined and the percentage of old farmers rose has also affected the environmental impacts of Iowa agriculture. These statistics mean that farmers had less availability of labor on farms and relatively more capital from off-farm sources. The quite old farmers of today want to do less labor and they have more capital than young farmers do. These changes during the period of declining farm prices and income has fostered systems of “tax loss farming,” favoring those with higher off-farm incomes and those in higher tax brackets. They got bigger tax write-off subsidies per acre, (assuming identical farms,) than farmers with lower total incomes. This also magnified the loss of diversity and sustainability on farms, and increased the use of purchased inputs, like fertilizers, pesticides, and larger machinery.

Slide shows on these farmer impacts for each the 42 counties (and 4 Congressional districts) are not complete yet, but the one for all of Iowa is available here: https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/the-decline-of-farming-in-iowa-part-2-farmer-impacts.

In general, with much lower net incomes per acre, and with the loss of several kinds of value-added livestock/poultry from a large majority of farms, farms have had to get much bigger in acres to stay the same economic size, which is another systemic factor working against diversity and sustainability.

To address a wide range of issues, including those of rural economic and community health, rural environmental decline, and agriculture’s impacts on climate, changes are needed in the federal farm bill to restore programs of market management for economic justice. Iowa farmers need the kinds of Democratic Party Price Floor and Supply Management programs that we had in the past. Proposals to do this have been available for decades, and there have been many econometric studies showing this approach is much better than each of the increasingly Republican farm bills we’ve seen from 1980 to 2014. These proposals have come from the organizations of the Family Farm (Farm Justice) Movement, including support from the National Farmers Organization, the American Agriculture Movement, the North American Farm Alliance, the National Family Farm Coalition, the National Farmers Union, and the Texas Farmers Union. Many of them address the dairy portion of the farm bill, which has been hurt so much by the cheap prices that have forced farmers to subsidize CAFOs. These proposals were much cheaper than each of the Farm Bills, (farm bill baselines,) that they were compared with. They each would have significantly reduced the huge CAFO and junk food subsidies of these farm bills, and would also have reduced the export dumping of these decades, where the United States has been losing money on farm exports, subsidizing foreign countries while damaging the economy, the environment, public health, and rural community life here.

One of the most comprehensive of these studies was the FAPRI, (Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute,) study of the 1987 Family Farm Act, (Harkin-Gephardt proposal). (https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/09/family-farm-act-of-1987/). FAPRI found that the Harkin-Gephardt proposal would have greatly increased Net Farm Income and income from farm exports, as in the charts below. (The charts below are adjusted for inflation in 2019 dollars, and therefore different than those at the link above.)

At the same time, Harkin-Gephardt would have greatly reduced the costs of these core farm programs to government and taxpayers.

For the 8 major crops studied, the programs would have reduced acreages below the inadequate levels of the 1985 Republican Farm Bill.

This would have resulted in reduced production of the 8 crops, to prevent oversupply and cheap prices, as seen in the chart below of 6 of the crops where production can be measured in bushels.

The value of the 8 crops would then be much higher, however, under Harkin-Gephardt than under the 1985 Farm Bill. 

A similar pattern would have been seen for exports. The quantity exported under Harkin-Gephardt would have been significantly smaller, as seen in the chart below featuring 6 crops measured in bushels. Similar patterns were found for cotton and rice.

On the other hand, income from exports was found to be much higher with Harkin-Gephardt.

If USDA-ERS “full cost”* figures are applied to the FAPRI data, we also see that the Harkin-Gephardt proposal would result in exports above zero, while the 1985 Farm Bill that President Reagan signed would have farmers losing money on their investments. (*Here USDA “full costs” include a wage equivalent for the farmer, plus a portion of general farm overhead and other factors. So the resulting figures are a return to a farmers’ investments in land, machinery and facilities.)

Because the Harkin-Gephardt farm bill proposal would significantly raise the costs of grain for feeding livestock, ending CAFO subsidies, it was found to affect farming systems in ways that would help the environment. For example, there would be more forage, (grass, alfalfa, clover,) and less feeding of grain in CAFOs and feedlots. According to the study, (https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/agsfaprsr/244143.htm):

“a major shift in the type of meat produced would occur concurrently with the shift toward less production.”

“As feed costs increase toward an 80% parity level, producers shift away from grain-fed animals and utilize available forage to add weight to beef.”

“… the higher costs of beef production associated with parity crop pricing would likely push the industry toward an animal which matures (finishes) at a lighter weight and could be forage-fed for a substantial part of the weight-gaining process.”

“Such an adjustment would be costly to current feedlot operators.”

Our macro, systemic conclusion is clear. We can’t fix sustainability for agriculture without restoring economic distributive farm justice.