farm trade

Republicans Reduce Farm Program Benefits, Again

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House Republicans have proposed to reduce farm program benefits in the farm bill section of their big brutal budget reconciliation bill. Democrats should raise up this issue politically, in order to take back the rural vote, where so many states have become more Republican in recent years.

The Failed Farm Policies of the Anti-Farmer Republicans

(To see what the House Republican Reconciliation Bill did, skip ahead to the heading “Proposed Republican Reductions for the Price Loss Coverage Program.”)

Over the long haul, as farm program benefits have been reduced more and more and more, Republicans have been the top leaders favoring the reductions. Republican farm bill actions have clearly been increasingly anti-farmer for seven decades, as they’ve reduced and ended the parity farm programs of the Democratic Party New Deal. 

By the 1980s it was clear what the differences were between Republicans and Democrats on the farm bill. Republicans called for reducing minimum farm Price Floor levels, (similar in principle to minimum wage floors,) and starting in the 1950s, they consistently mismanaged supply management programs, especially supply reduction programs, causing increased oversupply and cheaper prices. Democrats managed the programs more effectively, consistently reducing oversupply.

Especially during the 1980s phase of this chronic farm crisis we saw how the Republicans favored farm subsidies, which were not needed under the New Deal programs, which featured higher minimum farm price floor levels. So Republicans became the “big spenders.” During this phase, the chronic farm crisis had snowballed, leading to so many farm foreclosures that collateral values crashed by 45%. Returns on equity for the corn belt fell to double digits below zero for six years in a row. In response, in the 1985 Farm Bill, Republicans further lowered price floor levels by large amounts. They also greatly increased subsidies, but by a lesser amount than the price floor reductions, resulting in lower farm income. 

In contrast, during the 1980s and 1990s, rural populist Democrats proposed to restore New Deal Programs, reducing oversupply, raising price floor levels and with no farm subsidies needed. Examples of this include the Harkin-Alexander Bill of 1985 and the Harkin-Gephardt Bill of 1987. Econometric studies of these proposals, in comparison to the 1981 and 1985 farm bills found them to be much cheaper and much better for struggling farmers, with much greater income on farm subsidies. The Democratic proposal would have raised farm prices above full costs, and the U.S. would have stopped losing money on major farm exports, (with the losses falling on farmers, not the giant agribusiness middlemen). These efforts proved to be helpful to the Democratic Party across the major crop farming states.

The Democratic Farm Bills of the 1980s failed to pass in Congress, v, and major farm prices were below full costs every year, 1981-2006, except for 1996. 

Then, in 1996, Republicans ended market management programs, (vetoed, then signed by Democratic President Clinton), while offering “transitional subsidies” for 1996 through 2001. These additional reductions almost immediately and massively failed, as farm prices fell to record low levels, year after year. For example, farmers saw 8 of the 9 lowest corn and soybean prices in history between 1997 and 2005, and other major crop prices were very similar. This created a huge crisis for the Republican Party. Instead of restoring market management programs, however, they poured in a lot more subsidy money, in 4 emergency farm bills, in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. These extra subsidies were then included in the 2002 Farm Bill. They were then reduced in the 2008 Farm Bill, and even more in the 2014 and then 2018 Farm Bills.

Meanwhile, in 2001, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin became Senate Agriculture Chair, and Harkin then led the populist rural Democrats in switching sides, and supporting a slightly greened up version of the 1996 Republican Bill. (I call this “The Harkin Compromise,” and see the reference below.) This “bi-partisan” (Republican) approach then became normalized, and farmers then had virtually no one in Congress to support them on these, the biggest farm policy issues. What Congress did was all for cheap farm prices the giant agribusiness/CAFO buyers, U.S. and foreign. Additionally, in multiple ways, it supported the giant agribusiness input sellers, as supply reduction programs were ended, and most farmers lost all value added livestock, to then lose all of the sustainable livestock crops, grass pastures and alfalfa and clover hay, plus the nurse crops for these, like oats and barley. The results have been devastating for the environment.

Harkin surely believed that switching sides was the right thing to do for the Democratic Party, as he was being criticized for proposing his version of the New Deal farm programs. (Republicans believe that free markets work for agriculture, and that’s the justification for the program reductions. That belief is untrue, however, and especially for agriculture, which “lacks price responsiveness” “on both the supply and the demand side for aggregate agriculture.”) We can see now, however, that since Democrats have stopped supporting fair prices for farmers, they have gone down a lot with regard to winning the rural vote. For example, Iowa has lost all of its Democratic members of Congress.

The Price Loss Coverage Program

Among the farm bill provisions in the House Budget Reconciliation Bill are cuts to the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) farm subsidy program, which is what I’m examining here. PLC is a “countercyclical” farm subsidy program, meaning that it’s the least irrational of these programs. This means that farmers get more subsidies when the need is greater, and less when the need is smaller. The program features subsidy triggers, dollar amounts per bushel, pound or hundredweight, below which a subsidy is given. The subsidy trigger levels are a called Reference Prices.

Here’s an example of how it works, which was given to me by Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley a few years ago at a town hall meeting. The PLC subsidy trigger for corn was set at $3.70. If the market price of corn fell to $3.32, then farmers who signed up for this program would get a subsidy. Grassley claimed that they would get the difference, 38¢ per bushel, but that is false. The formula for subsidies includes a 15% reduction, or 85% of the 38¢, (32¢,) and this is then multiplied by a farmers historic yield, (called the PLC Payment Yield). This is based on yields farmers got in the past, which are much lower than current yields. So the per bushel subsidy for the 38¢ reduction below the standard would be 22¢ per bushel. That is then multiplied by base acres, which are generally similar to actual acres of the crop.

Reference Price standards were set in 2014, with no adjustments for inflation, so the same dollar amounts were used every year, 2014 through 2024. Of course, not being adjusted for inflation, the value of the standards fell lower every year.

Additionally, these subsidy trigger standards were set well below the full costs of production for corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, oats, and grain sorghum, but higher than full costs for rice and peanuts. So in the corn example, farmers would lose money below full costs but not get any subsidy until the prices also fell below the Reference Price standard. Then they would get a subsidy for only a portion of the additional reduction, (for just 58% of the additional reduction in the example above).

A Potential Political Crisis for Farm State Republicans

Farm state Republicans in Congress, such as those on the Agriculture Committees, seem to believe that we’re heading for another farm crisis. We had much higher farm prices under Biden, but inflation from the pandemic plus the war in Ukraine caused farm input costs to rise a lot. This is seen in higher farm cost of production estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service. Now many expect farm prices to fall. We see that in USDA and CBO projections, for example. That is what typically happens following unusual farm price spikes. 

This translates into a potential political crisis for farm state Republicans. This potential is compounded by the fact that the Republican Project 2025 calls for ending the major farm subsidy programs, (Price Loss Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage,) and calls for reducing Crop Revenue Insurance subsidies, the sugar market management program, and the market agreement programs for fruits and vegetables, which have a supply management aspect to them. Project 2025 also calls for the elimination of various USDA programs. Meanwhile, President Trump has been implementing a number of Project 2025 provisions, and making cuts of various kinds to USDA. 

Proposed Republican Reductions for the Price Loss Coverage Program

In response to the current concerns in farm country, House Republicans have proposed to “raise” Price Loss Coverage subsidy triggers, (Reference Price levels). For corn, for example, they propose a raise from $3.70 to $4.10. That’s a raise in nominal terms, (i.e. not adjusted for inflation). If adjusted for inflation, however, it’s a significant decline from the original standard of $3.70 in 2014. 

The factor of adjusting for inflation or not has confused this matter. For example, the agricultural economists at FarmDoc Daily have claimed that the new Republican proposal raises Reference Prices significantly. Others have jumped on this bandwagon, citing FarmDoc Daily, and expressing outrage at the increased subsidies for crops like corn and soybeans, for example United We Eat, and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Movement. I have challenged these claims, showing how, by adjusting for inflation, the PLC program standards have been significantly reduced. 

Here’s what I find. As in the chart below, for the various crops, FarmDoc Daily contrasts the “Existing Statutory Reference Price” with the “Increase Proposed,” for example, the original $3.70 for corn versus the new 2025 standard of $4.10. The “existing” $3.70 could refer to the standard for 2024, or to the standard for 2014, or for any year in between. Because of inflation, however, the value of $3.70 in 2014 is significantly different from $3.70 in 2024. The same applies to the new standards. $4.10 in 2025 does not have the same value as $4.10 in 2030, according to CBO projections of the rate of inflation. Then, for 2031 to 2035, the House proposal raises the standard by ½ of 1% per year, to $4.20 for corn in 2035, for example. FarmDoc Daily ag economists identifies this “Increase Proposed” ($3.70 to $4.20,) as 13.61% for corn. Meanwhile, for 2031-2035, CBO projects an inflation rate of 2% per year, four times as much as the nominal Republican Reference Price increases for those years. So PLC Reference Price standards are also reduced during those years, if adjusted for inflation. 

I’ve created two slide shows to tell this story and with multiple data charts for all of the crops covered in the PLC program. (See links in the References section, below.)

Farm Bill Issues Involve Significant Opportunities and Huge Challenges for Democrats

The PLC issue, in it’s larger farm policy and political context, as laid out here, offers significant opportunities for Democrats. Due to a major lack of knowledge of farm policy history and the history of related political activism, however, Democrats have a steep uphill battle to take advantage of these opportunities. This is not just a problem of what Democratic Party activists don’t know. The bigger problem is that Democrats “know so much that just ain’t so.” So there must be tremendous unlearning before a significant factual approach can be formulated.

At root, in multiple ways, Democrats and progressive activists generally have unknowingly been taken in by a conservative, Republican narrative about farm policy and politics. In the Republican narrative, the issues are all about farm subsidies and government spending. To “follow the money” you look at farm bill spending. That spending goes almost entirely to farmers, not to agribusiness, so the crux of the issue lies in what are believed to be large benefits to farmers, (farmer victims). Benefits to agribusiness exploiters tend not to be seen, or rather, they’re thought to come from farm subsidies. This is all essentially false, as can easily be proven. The biggest flaw is that the farm bill’s market management impacts, from severe reductions over decades, and which are much larger than spending and subsidies, are not found in government spending at all. In effect, they remain invisible to those immersed in this covertly, (unknowingly,) conservative narrative. And yet this much larger unknown part is directly where highly profitable agribusiness exploiters are massively subsidized. And so they are subsidized by these farmer victims, not by taxpayers, and throiugh them, consumers are also massively subsidized by farmers, especially by the subsidized farmers, and especially by farmers raising corn, and operating in corn belt states like Iowa. And the de facto subsidies that farmers pay to agribusiness/consumers are much larger than the government subsidies that taxpayers pay back to farmers as compensations. And meanwhile, as the U.S. so often loses billions of dollars on farm exports, there is very little awareness that it is occurring, let alone what caused it and what can be done to fix it. And the same applies to the massive subsidization of huge CAFO corporations, the resulting massive loss of farms with livestock and poultry, and the subsequent massive loss of farms and acreages of the greatly needed sustainable livestock crops, grass pastures, alfalfa and clover hay fields, and soil protective nurse crops like oats and barley.

We see then that there are numerous important corollaries that have arisen from this core, unknowingly conservative, narrative (which is rooted in dozens of farm subsidy myths, and see the reference for that topic below, as it explores various corollaries). For one thing, Republicans, and farm bills, (and especially Commodity Title programs, and especially farm subsidies,) are thought to be very pro-farmer. Both conservatives and progressives have believed this, in spite of the fact that it’s very false.

At the same time, of course, there are huge and increasing problems in agriculture, especially environmental problems related to pollution and climate, and health problems, but also the decline of rural communities. This part of the narrative is very true.

The narrative then puts these things together with a conclusion that the problems are caused by the farm bill providing huge incentives to farmers growing the main subsidized field crops, such as corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice. The solution is then supposed to be found in “subsidy reforms” which cut subsidies to the vast majority of these farmers, and increase subsidies for conservation and sustainable farming practices. So the vast majority of farmer victims are seen as opponents who are supported by Republicans, and not as allies. Meanwhile, subsidy reform proposals maintain the disastrous Republican free market farm policies, (i.e. no New Deal style market management,) thus continuing to foster chronic market failure, providing the cheapest of cheap farm prices to subsidize CAFOs and agribusiness at the maximum possible level. So this imagined solution is hardly any solution at all. 

One of the biggest falsehoods generating political failure on these issues is the lumping together of farmer victims with agribusiness exploiters, as if they’re on the same side, rather than on opposite sides. This is expressed by various ways by conservatives, such as by referring to the agricultural industry, or corn industry or hog industry. We also have conservative groups advocating on the issues in these ways, such as Farm Bureau, the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association, and the National Pork Producers Council. So these groups present themselves as farmer led groups, even though their approaches are pro-agribusiness and anti-farmer. On the progressive side, the same conservative narrative is widely expressed, such as with the terms “Big Ag” and “Industrial Agriculture.” In this way, by unknowingly utilizing a conservative, Republican narrative, progressives and Democrats are further divided and conquered. This is further reinforced by groups advocating for sustainable, organic and local farming and against “industrial” “commodity” “Big Ag” farming. In this narrative a nonorganic farm using tractors and combines is “industrial,” while an organic farm using tractors and combines is not. Additionally, in recent years much or most of the advocacy for black and other minority farmers has moved in this false direction and away from the previous unity of the Family Farm (Farm Justice) Movement. Livestock and dairy advocacy has also become siloed. The same is true for the anti-CAFO movement. Urban “Food” and “Environmental” influences have also been important to these intellectual and political failures. These leaders generally have lacked knowledge of the history of the farm bill and farm politics, or rather invented and spread a massive false history of it. (I base these generalizations on my having written more than 200 detailed reviews and review letters of the work of these various categories of activists, and on my many thousands of online interactions and tweets with representatives of these groups.)

Advocating FOR a Farm Crisis is a Very Bad Political Idea

Groups like United We Eat, which mistakenly believe that corn, soybean, and other subsidized farmers have been rewarded by historical farm bills, rather than penalized in total, in relation to other crops and enterprises, and which may also believe that subsidies cause cheap market prices, (they don’t,) have called for further reducing farm program benefits to these huge crops affecting hundreds of thousands of farmers across many states. What they call for, if enacted, could cause a major snowballing of the chronic farm crisis, especially in light of the fact that farm debt has risen to record high levels. This would be a disaster for agriculture, in many major ways, including with regard to the environmental problems. So this is a very serious misunderstanding, with major consequences, including political ones. 

It would run many farmers out of business, leading to larger and fewer farms, which would further encourage the use of labor saving pesticides and fertilizers. It would do nothing to decrease the subsidization of CAFOs, and so would continue the increasing loss of the diversity livestock and the sustainable livestock crops mentioned above. As I’ve said, that then leads to more off farm work in order to survive, which again means less labor for diversity, and more off-farm capital for intensive input farming. This would all add to the loss of the infrastructure and info-structure for diversity, on farms, in rural communities, and across rural regions. That in turn hurts organic and local farmers. Beginning and minority farmers would be especially hurt. Both have been devastated by the farm program reductions of the past seven decades. There would be further losses of rural population and rural communities would see further decline, in multiple ways, as numerous studies have indicated.

Fortunately, there are great and unifying alternatives to be found in the model of the New Deal Farm Programs, as seen in the proposals being offered in recent years to update them. (One of the updates for which I’ve been advocating is to include incentives in supply management programs for helping to bring livestock out of CAFOs and back onto most farms.) Democrats have an awesome legacy to draw upon for this kind of an agronomic, environmental, social and political strategy. The key is for Democrats to learn about their own history of advocacy for just farm policies. As I’ve been arguing with regard to today’s social movement climate and narratives, in the big picture, there’s no significant farm sustainability without farm justice. And that’s what we find in the legacy of the Democratic Party: distributive economic farm justice.

References for This Price Loss Coverage Project

One value of this paper is that it provides further accessibility to the major reference sources that I’m relying upon in this PLC farm subsidy project. I’ve produced two major slide shows and two videos, and references are more accessible in this form than in those forms. Of special concern to me is the availability of this material to the Democratic Party, its leaders and candidates. The PLC issue being raised now by Republicans is a key indicator of the larger paradigm and narrative that can help Democrats to win back the rural vote. This in turn could make it much more possible for Democrats to win on a wide range of important issues unrelated to agriculture, including the protection of our Democracy from corrupt authoritarian and fascist influences. I’ve engaged in many debates with conservatives over these political issues over the past 40 years, and they really have no (Republican) answers to these challenges, where they are the big spenders who have long had us losing money on farm exports. 

It’s not just that a renewed New Deal farm justice paradigm 

My new work on Republican Reductions to Farm Program Benefits in the Reconciliation Bill

My Google Drive Folder with many materials: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_AYKC9ICqz7vb5jfAQNmVjCQ3jVZbinN?usp=share_link

Slide Show: Brad Wilson, “Republicans Propose to Reduce Farm Subsidies,” Slide Share: Brad Wilson, 6/27/25,https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/republicans-propose-to-reduce-farm-subsidies-pdf/281074684.

Slide Show: Brad Wilson, “Extra: Republicans Reduce Farm Subsidies,” Slide Share: Brad Wilson, 6/27/25, https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/extra-republicans-reduce-farm-subsidies-pdf-ca8f/281556888.

Video: Brad Wilson, “Republicans Reduce Farm Program Benefits 1,” (“PLC Subsidy Triggers in the House Proposal,) YouTube: Fireweed Farm, 6/26/25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIiW3dgJmOg&list=PL6A69251AD0413A0D&index=1.

Video: Brad Wilson, “Republicans Reduce Farm Program Benefits 2,” (“More PLC Subsidy Triggers in the House Proposal,) YouTube: Fireweed Farm, 6/26/25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5QFCtf51E&list=PL6A69251AD0413A0D&index=2 .

Sources Claiming that Republicans Increased PLC Benefits in the House Reconciliation Bill

A number of Republicans in the House of Representatives have made this claim, including Iowa’s Zach Nunn and Randy Feenstra, and also Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.

Schnitkey, G., N. Paulson, C. Zulauf and J. Coppess. “Spending Impacts of PLC and ARC-CO in House Agriculture Reconciliation Bill.” farmdoc daily (15):93, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 20, 2025, https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2025/05/spending-impacts-of-plc-and-arc-co-in-house-agriculture-reconciliation-bill.html.

United We Eat, “MAHA Leaders Urge Rejection of Massive Subsidies to Big Ag in Reconciliation Bill,” United We Eat: 6/12/25, https://unitedweeat.substack.com/p/maha-leaders-urge-rejection-of-massive

MAHA, “To Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Stop Congress’s New “Big Beautiful Poison Bill” that Harm’s American’s Health,” United We Eat, June 6, 2025, https://unitedweeat.substack.com/p/to-make-america-healthy-again-maha.

More Information about the PLC, ARC, and Revenue Insurance Programs

Brad Wilson, “Dear Ag Sec. Perdue, Why are Peanuts Favored over Corn, Wheat, Soybeans, and 

Oats?” Family Farm Justice, 7/14/17, https://familyfarmjustice.me/2017/07/14/dear-ag-sec-perdue-why-are-peanuts-favored-over-corn-wheat-soybeans-and-oats/.

Video: Brad Wilson, “Wilson V. Grassley 2: Farm Subsidies,” YouTube: Fireweed Farm, 9/11/21, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAJyKU_d7sA&list=PLA1E706EFA90D1767&index=7

Slides: Brad Wilson, “The Case Against Bipartisan Farm Bills,” SlideShare: Brad Wilson, 11/16/22, 

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-case-against-bipartisan-farm-bills/254542497.

Slides: Brad Wilson, “Democratic Party Farm Programs,” SlideShare: Brad Wilson, 4/23/22,https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/democratic-party-farm-programspdf/256537282.

Brad Wilson, “Primer: Revenue Insurance in the 2012 Farm Bill,” ZSpace: Brad Wilson, May 11, 

2012, http://znetwork.org/zblogs/primer-revenue-insurance-in-the-2012-farm-bill-by-brad-wilson.

Brad Wilson, “Subsidies vs Price Floors in Farm Bill History, Revised,” Family FarmJustice, 5/25/16, 

https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/05/25/subsidies-vs-price-floors-in-farm-bill-history-revised/.

Learn About Reform Proposals

“The Farm Policy Reform Act of 1985,” 1985, https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/10/the-farm-policy-reform-act-of-1985/.

National Save the Family Farm Coalition, “Family Farm Act of 1987,” https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/09/family-farm-act-of-1987/ . 

Video: National Family Farm Coalition, “From the Grassroots Up, Not from the Money Down,” YouTube: Brad Wilson: 4/13/21, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ywo1PX9VYI&list=PL7K_XwGI3jVS4AMDeEdFfHALIOYnoWg53&index=4.

National Family Farm Coalition, “Food from Family Farms Act,” IATP: Aug 28, 2006,https://www.iatp.org/documents/food-from-family-farms-act.

Dr. Daryll E. Ray, et al, 

Rethinking U.S. Agricultural Policy, APAC: 2003, https:// 

www.agpolicy.org/blueprint/APACReport8-20-03WITHCOVER.pdf

Video: Brad Wilson, “How to End CAFO Subsidies,” YouTube: Fireweed Farm, 4/30/25, 

Brad Wilson, “Primer: Farm Justice Proposals for the 2018 Farm Bill,” ZSpace: Brad Wilson, 

May 11, 2012, http://znetwork.org/zblogs/primer-farm-justice-proposals-for-the-2012-farm-bill-by-brad-wilson.

Video Playlist: Brad Wilson, “Farm Bill History,” YouTube: Fireweed Farm, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7K_XwGI3jVS4AMDeEdFfHALIOYnoWg53.

You Can’t Fix Sustainability Without Justice

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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. 

Review: Silvia Secchi on the Farm Bill:  Part 1: Synopsis

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Introduction to the Series: A Teachable Moment

This is a review of a presentation by Dr. Silvia Secchi in a webinar of the Iowa Farmers Union on the parity farm programs (here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=272843577976670&id=107307789290804&anchor_composer=false). Upon hearing Dr. Secchi’s presentation, a number of farmers expressed concerns that she didn’t understand the issues, and I commented that her presentation surely contained at least “two dozen falsehoods.”

First:  “Review: Silvia Secchi on the Farm Bill: Part 1: Synopsis,” is a condensed version of the long 2nd paper, a quick overview. Less than 5 pages. (You’re here now.)

Second: “Review: Silvia Secchi on the Farm Bill:  Part 2: ‘2 Dozen Falsehoods?‘” is a lengthy rebuttal or response to 28 claims or statements that she made in her presentation. About 34 pages, including 15 data charts. More than 80 endnotes are posted separately as Part 3, below.

Third:  “Silvia Secchi on the Farm Bill: Part 3:  “Endnotes to Part 2”

Fourth: “Silvia Secchi on the Farm Bill: Part 4:  Generalizations that Mystify,” is a fairly brief discussion of 8 generalizations that she made in her talk. While I see these as good and sometimes great generalizations, I see each one as misapplied, and generally more applicable to my rebuttal of her thesis than to her claims in support of it.  This mixture of common sense and false applications, I argue, mystifies us, blocking our progress on these important issues.

The reason I’ve gone into such great detail is that I see this as a teachable moment. Dr. Secchi’s views are widely held, and closely related to additional views that are also widely held. At the same time, the issues are extremely important, as they are the biggest issues of U.S. and global agriculture.

Dr. Secchi’s Core Anomaly

As I explain in great detail in Part 2, (the long paper with endnotes,) Dr. Secchi supports policy positions that most strongly work against her (progressive) values.  While I generally share most of her core values, I reject her core anomaly, and offer solutions that are more congruent with these values.

“Two Dozen Falsehoods?”

Right after hearing her presentation to the Iowa Farmers Union, I commented below the video that there were probably at least two dozen falsehoods in it. In the long paper I identify the specific falsehoods and related matters that I see, 28 of them, and provide rebuttals to them. Here below I briefly describe each of these.

[1] Dr. Secchi suggested that we got rid of parity because it was a bad idea. I show that overwhelming evidence points the other way, that it was and is a great idea, and that Congress/Presidents reduced and ended it because of pressure from the agribusiness lobby, which has always opposed it.

[2] Dr. Secchi suggested that price and supply management works by the government buying up the excess to push up the price, such as of corn, which, of course, would not reduce the supply. I show that it works with price floors and by cutting acreage, and if that’s done correctly, the government rarely has to take temporary ownership of grain, and in that case, when they do, they’ll likely make a profit on it. 

[3] Dr. Secchi argued that, under parity programs, government “is in charge of stocks,” such as of grain, and that, “history proves” that oversupply is the result of the programs. I show that there was little oversupply during parity, that the problems occurred with the decline from parity and the ending of parity.

[4] Dr. Secchi argued that minimum price floor programs, (which are similar in principle to minimum wage floors,) cannot work if a country exports. I show that price floor/supply management programs did work as we exported, and that this is also supported by academics in a number of econometric studies.

[5] Dr. Secchi argued that the only way parity programs work with exports is if you lose money on exports with a two-tiered price system.” I show the evidence for how, though you export a smaller quality with these programs, you make more money on the exports.

[6] Dr. Secchi argued that the WTO would oppose what she imagines as a system of losing money on exports. I showed how WTO has never really opposed export dumping, and has never had a system for preventing it.

[7] Dr. Secchi argued that the programs can’t work because farmers will increase production with these programs, producing more because the higher prices, (which is a conservative, free market philosophy, assuming that supply and demand effectively self-correct, as in economic theory and economics textbooks). I show a list of reasons why that view is incorrect: that that philosophy fails for agriculture in the “aggregate,” (as in the real world,) for a variety of reasons that make it different from other industries; (that farmers have only so much land, and if they acquire more, others have less); that there is a huge factor of diminishing returns with over-fertilization; that the programs just cut back on supply however much more is needed on following any year of increased carryover (oversupply).

[8] Dr. Secchi argued that the programs also fail because of new technology that increases yields. I address that along with [7], showed how parity successfully handled the huge change from draft power to tractors, (which freed up tens of millions of acres from usage as draft power feeds [fuels]), showed how the extreme conditions of the Great Depression that radically altered supply and demand for farm equipment manufacturers was successfully addressed by supply management, showed also how the huge recent changes in technology in the auto industry did not at all eliminate their need for their supply management, which they see as essential, and in fact, all of this is all exactly why the programs are needed.

[9] Dr. Secchi argued that “at the end of the day, there was no supply reduction, but rather “a lot of surplus.” I show not only that that was false, as discussed above, but that here, and on other issues, she surely doesn’t know WHEN parity happened, and therefore was blaming parity for what happened during the time of decline from parity, and the time after the ending of parity, including times when Republican administrations mismanaged the programs. My answer outlines 5 different periods:

A. Before 1933, before the farm program.

B. Early farm bill years, pre-parity, 1933-1941.

C. The parity years, 1942-1952, (100% of parity or more every year for agriculture as a whole).

D. The Decline from Parity, 1953-1995, a time of (lower and lower price floors and inadequate acreage reductions).

E. The end of the remaining major programs, 

[10] Dr. Secchi claimed that “Parity pricing … really does nothing for the environment.”  I show why, in multiple ways, these programs have been the biggest thing in agricultural policy that has protected the environment during agricultural production, and how this has become so much more visible in hindsight. For example, it became visible after decades of reductions in farm prices, leading then to the subsidization of the loss of value-added livestock and poultry to CAFOs, leading then to the loss of the sustainable crops, the livestock crops like grass, hay and feedgrain nurse crops like oats.

[11] Dr. Secchi also claimed that “There’s also nothing for anti-trust, to reduce the power of the big agribusiness corporations,” in parity programs. I show how the parity programs made the biggest agribusiness corporations pay farmers $1.2 trillion more than they were paid over 13 years prior to the farm bill, (based upon averages per year). The higher prices, then, were a huge deterrent to CAFOs.  On the other hand, I show that the severe reduction and then ending of parity programs, (leading to multi-trillions of dollars of over all agribusiness subsidization below parity levels,) resulted in the taking away of livestock farming from diversified farmers, as a massive further subsidization of giant corporations.

[12] Dr. Secchi argued that we have CAFOs because we ignore the hidden costs. I show how, with parity, a variety of major hidden costs, (which she fails to mention, i.e. to farmers, to communities, to the economy,) are paid, by CAFOs, junk food makers, export dumpers, and others in the agribusiness input (sellers) and output (buyers) complex. This, of course, also includes hidden costs to the environment.

[13] Dr. Secchi argued that, “If we did not have oligolipsic power, CAFOs wouldn’t make sense,” which is another argument for standard antitrust laws and enforcement. I show that simply having smaller corporate sizes does nothing to reduce the massive subsidization, (i.e. cheap farm prices,) of CAFOs by farmers, since that is based on chronic market failure on both supply and demand sides.

[14] Dr. Secchi argued that farm subsidies, (seen as extra rewards,) are pushing up the price of land. I show how farmers have been paid less and less with subsidies, (due to the overlooked aspect of lowering and ending of minimum price floor programs,) resulting in much less net farm income (including subsidies) and much lower returns on equity and assets, (including subsidies). So the evidence doesn’t support her theory, (which is widely shared). I show, on the other hand, how, with this massive penalization of farmers through cheaper and cheaper farm prices, surviving farmers have increasingly had to get off farm jobs, greatly reducing the availability of their labor, while greatly increasing the role of capital in their operations. This in turn, I show, has enabled them to use their large off farm incomes for “tax loss farming,” leading then to both further capitalization, and the bidding up of land prices. (All from penalizing farmers.)

[15] Dr. Secchi then further argued that “That’s why a lot of young farmers are into CAFOs,… because you don’t need as much land.” I showed how young farmers are not “into CAFOs.”

[16] Dr. Secchi argued that “parity would do nothing for” the “transition to the next generation of farmers.” I showed how it’s the decline from parity that has been so devastating for young farmers, even when they come from established farms.

[17] Continuing re. “the next generation of farmers” Dr. Secchi further argued that “The way to break this link is to think of a subsidy system that is decoupled from production,” such as “a fixed payment per farm.” I show how her solution would maintain the cheapest of cheap farm prices for junk food, export dumping and CAFOs, which is how we lost our young farmers in the first place, as farms lost the livestock systems that favor young farmers. 

I also explain the theory of decoupling, how it came from agribusiness, and how it’s been a disastrous policy. I give a numerical example from 1980-2005 to show how the “fixed payment per farm” idea is absurd and much more unjust, (being based on misunderstandings of statistics, [where tiny acreages would get the same as full-time family-sized farms,] misunderstandings of the farm economy and misunderstandings of farm programs. I show how it would therefore be a kind of political suicide for people with progressive values. 

[18] Dr. Secchi argued that “Decoupling supports…. helps more small farmers.” I show that it continues the strategy that corporate leaders have used to get rid of them. I also explain the theory of decoupling, how it came from agribusiness, that how continues the strategy that corporate leaders have used to get rid of small farmers. I show how it’s been a disastrous policy, in all it’s versions, (both practically and politically).

[19] Dr. Secchi’s view is that, “If you have a fixed amount of support that doesn’t go away, regardless of what prices are. If you want, you sell to the open market. You do it, without subsidies.” I describe how, in the real world, this is an irrational, very expensive, and politically disastrous approach.

[20] Dr. Secchi claims that decoupling is “a policy that works regardless of market circumstances.” I show how, in truth, it’s a policy that almost always fails in real world markets, like a clock that has stopped.

[21] Dr. Secchi called for policies to “Make grazing more attractive, reward farmers who do that.” I show how trying to do that without adequate price floor programs is an extremely contradictory policy that is both expensive and doomed to fail.

[22] Dr. Secchi’s solution against CAFOs and monoculture was: “Don’t give subsidized crop insurance to corn and beans, subsidized crop insurance only for extended rotation.” “If you want to buy crop insurance, you buy crop insurance without subsidies.” I rebut this in multiple ways through my paper, (as described above,) even as I show how, with parity programs, farmers buy crop insurance without subsidies.

[23] Dr. Secchi argued that parity was chosen only for the Great Depression, but then “prices went up” and so “parity became less relevant.” She called for “a robust policy that works when prices are high, and when prices are low.” I show how prices did NOT go up over the next 7 decades, except for help from parity programs, (with fairly small exceptions,) how the reasons why parity is needed, (lack of price responsiveness on both supply and demand sides,) have continued, and how de-coupled programs are the worst we’ve ever had with regard to the issues of “when prices are high” vs. when prices are low, while parity programs have been, by far, the most successful programs to address this.

[24] Dr. Secchi suggested that farmers support systems of overproduction and the illusion that they would then “get paid more for it,” with reference to a statement identified with Earl Butz, (Nixons Secretary of Agriculture, i.e. “fencerow to fencerow,”) thus suggesting that farmers believed and followed Butz. I argued that, first, productivity is valued by farmers whether prices are high or low, second, I showed that most farmers have repeatedly supported adequate supply management, based on their understanding that oversupply leads to getting paid less, and third, I showed how farmers have vigorously rejected the myths of Earl Butz, (myths quickly proven wrong after the 1970s 2-year price spike, as Butz failed to adequately manage supply). (Of course, while rejecting supply management for farmers, [so that giant corporations can buy cheap and sell more products to farmers,] Butz supported supply management at Ralston Purina where I worked both before and after his time as Secretary of Agriclture. This has long been the standard, self-centered and hypocritical position of agribusiness.)

[25] In all of this, (and very specifically, near the end,) Dr. Secchi argued that supply management and parity programs were minor and irrelevant in significance in general, a waste of time and a diversion away from important issues like anti-trust, racial justice, and the challenges for small and beginning farmers. I showed how these core farm programs were the biggest, most important issues by far, no less relevant in 2nd or 3rd decade of the 21st century, and also much more powerful solutions with regard to antitrust, the environment, racial justice and small/beginning farmers than what others have proposed.

[26] Dr. Secchi expressed perplexity that she was viewed as being supportive of a conservative/agribusiness position like Farm Bureau and the Heritage Foundation. I showed how her positions are essentially the same as theirs with regard to the core economic issues, (and based upon the same false interpretation of the history farm program impacts,) while at the same time, her position was the opposite of Farm Bureau and others with regard to environmental regulations.

[27] Dr. Secchi made a side comment about the parity price of corn “at $12, $14 per bushel,” apparently to support her argument that the programs don’t work. Parity prices are quite high relative to most prices of recent decades, and this is a common criticism of parity. I provided a number of considerations for addressing this charge. I showed how parity prices for crops have risen more slowly than inflation, (with exceptions for a couple of highly inflationary periods specific to agriculture). I raised the question of how much social good we want from farmers in relation to costs, such as with regard to environmental considerations, (and how much do we want CAFOs and junk food makers to pay for their feed and food ingredients). I pointed out how a number of proposals, which may initially be more politically winnable (for replacing subsidies with better prices,) use lower price floor levels, and how the 1987 Family Farm Act started with lower price floors, to then gradually raise up to a final standard.

[28] When asked about reading recommendations, Dr. Secchi offered no suggestions other than to her own writing, which was not yet online, and without reference to where it would be. During her talk she offered no references to others who support for her views. In answering this, I showed the key online sources from a variety of organizations and academics. I also provided about 100 additional reference citations to support the specific points I made in answering these, “more than two dozen,” falsehoods.