There are a variety of powerful arguments in favor of restoring the New Deal parity-style farm programs, which feature top and bottom side supply management in support of minimum farm price floors and maximum price ceilings. These programs were reduced, more and more, 1953-1995, then ended. The results have been disastrous for U.S. agriculture, the U.S. economy, and much much more.

First, consider the American Argument, which is also the Business Argument, the Economic Argument, and more specifically, the Job Creation Argument, the Economic Multipliers and Wealth Creation arguments. This is also the Global Trade Argument. Farm markets “lack price responsiveness” “on both the supply and the demand side for aggregate agriculture,” so parity-style farm programs are always needed. From an economic standpoint, he most dramatic and absurdly overlooked argument here is that the U.S. should not lose money on farm exports, or on sales out of farming states, out of farming communities and off of farms, as as has been done for decades. In short, free markets and free trace chronically fail for agriculture. This goes far beyond questions about the balance of trade and questions of “market access.” The argument that “farmers need markets, not subsidies,) which we are hearing today in response to President Trump’s actions that have seriously damaged farm markets, is a false, conservative argument. It fails to address how farmers have lost money on exports, subsidizing countries all around the world, including, on sales of soybeans to China. In all of these ways, the costs are born by farmers, not middlemen, not the input complex, not the agribusiness buyers. While the main affects are seen in the reduction of farm income in the main farming states, they also show up as a reduction in national income. Farm income on diversified farms has had strong economic multipliers, in that they have reconciled, (not merely added,) many forms of value, creating lots of wealth. Reductions in the New Deal programs has not only reduced this value and wealth for farming areas and the nation as a whole, it has also changed farming to where it is less diverse, reconciling many fewer values, and therefore creating significantly less wealth. 

The Farm Subsidy Argument, which is also. the False Dominant Narratives Argument., is another important economic consideration which is also a very dramatic issue of intellectual blindness through a false paradigm bursting with anomalies. So most directly, we should have market management policies and programs, not expensive subsidies that cover up economic injustices and drainers of wealth, while only fractionally compensating the US farmer victims. Addiditonally, in hiding the economic damage in this way in order to blame the farmer victims, via dozens of farm subsidy myths, we have thwarted progress toward effective U.S. farm policy and trade policy in massive ways, affecting all of the arguments seen here. 

A key point of consideration with regard to the New Deal style farm programs is that they have played a bigger role on key issues than the other titles of the farm bill. They have been more important for conservation than the Conservation Title, more important for Farm Credit than the Farm Credit Title, more important for Rural Development than the Rural Development Title, more important for research than the Research Title, more important for trade than the Trade Title, more important for minorityfarmers, local food farmers, and global hunger (global food aid) than specific programs to address these challenges. 

The Sustainability Argument, (the Conservation Argument,) which is also the Environmental Argument, the Climate Change Argument and, more specifically for our time for the Midwest, the Water Quality argument. Cheap feedgrain prices subsidize CAFOs, giving them a competitive advantage over diversifed farmers. This subsidization therefore has fostered the massive removal of livestock from diversified farms, at the multi-billion-dollars-below-zero level. This, in turn, has led to massive losses of pastures, clover and alfalfa hay, and nurse crops for these like oats and barley, severely damaging resource conserving crop rotations like those we once saw on most farms, and that we still in organic farming. In turn, that has lead to greatly increased use of harsh fertilizers and pesticides. 

The Rural Development Argument, which breaks down into a large number of related arguments, as seen in the loss of hospitals and other mainstreet businesses, health care facilities, schools, and population in rural areas, including a massive “brain drain.” US and global rural areas need a fair share of wealth, they need fair trade farm prices to stimulate the creation of wealth and jobs. 

The Research Argument. We should not subsidize the development of a massive authoritarian and unsustainable power complex by setting farm prices artificially low, at the expense of all of these other goals. On this point see also Sustainability Argument and the Health and Nutrition Argument.

The Farm Credit Argument. Farmers need fair market prices for paying off loans. Keeping farmers in debt is highly inefficient, severely damaging to rural communities, and costly to consumers.

The Minority Farmers Argument. Minority and women farmers especially need to be paid fairly. Reducing and ending the New Deal farm programs over the past seven decades has been devastating to minority farmers. Actions to put new minority farmers onto the land with no regard to the larger policy problem that got rid of the previous well established minority farmers, based upon not knowing the larger economic history is foolish.

The Health and Nutrition Argument (Obesity, Diabetes, etc.). We should not subsidize unhealthy transfats and sugars, such as high fructose corn syrup with below cost food grains and oil seeds. The Water Quality Argument, above, is also now the Cancer Argument, as Iowa, for example, has become a leading state where cancer rates are high and rapidly growing.

The Local Foods Argument, was touched on above. It makes no sense to destroy the farmers who can best bring diversified local foods to consumers.

The Infrastructure Argument. With the massive reduction and elimination of the New Deal farm programs, and the resulting damage to farms and the farm economy, we’ve seen massive damage to the infrastructure and infostructure for diversity and wealth creation, on farms, in rural communities, across rural regions, and across the world. In addition to the damage to the infrastructure for diversity and sustainabilty, we’ve also seen massive damage to other aspects of rural regions, such as to the infrastructure for health care, for education, and to economic infrastructure up and down rural main streets.

The Inner City and Global Food Costs Argument. Only the New Deal farm programs protect consumers from spiking food costs due to shortages. We should always have price ceilings to trigger the release of reserve supplies, to moderate these price spikes and prevent hunger.

The Global Hunger Argument. Not that long ago more 80% of the global “undernourished” were rural, as were 70% of the populations of Least Developed Countries. They need fair farm prices to stimulate their rural economies.

The Political Strategy Argument. It is a huge political mistake for advocates on this wide variety of issues to merely call for increased government spending to patch up what is being otherwise damaged. The conservative side of these issues needs to be put front and center as an even higher priority. We should not lose money on farm exports, subsidizing foreigners, just because giant agribusiness buyers want to be subsidized by below cost farm products, and giant agribusiness input sellers want to sell products on maximum acreages, with no supply reduction programs. These are very important conservative economic issues, not just progressive issues.