Farm Subsidies

Farm Subsidies

Farm subsidies are a complicated mess of political games, confusing corporate structure, and overburdened legislation. The Farm Bill is the sole piece of legislation that feeds all Americans and helps to feed other people across the world. Food production is an issue that affects everyone across the globe, but receives little day-to-day attention. It is not due to a lack of interest in where food comes from, it is because following the paper trail to figure out how various government programs and polices work is an almost insurmountable task. Politicians from both parties criticize Farm Bill policy, and agree that major changes need to be made. But when it comes time to vote, they stamp it with their seal of approval. Caps are set on what individual farmers are allowed to receive in the way of subsidy payments, but complex corporate structures and irregular farm partnerships allow for loopholes, permitting the biggest farmers to receive most of the government money. It is not always apparent why policies that are widely criticized are left intact or what the next step should be, but politics is the common denominator. With politicians like Nancy Pelosi doing more to help advance their party than Americans with the Farm Bill, much-needed reform is unlikely.

Farm policy has completely changed its course over the past century. According to Food & Water Watch, in the 1930's farmers had the model of most businesses, the more they sold, the more they made. This mindset had farmers growing as much staple grains as possible. But not accounting for basic supply and demand principles, farmers produced large surpluses of staple grains, driving prices into the ground. The government's response was to try to manage the supply of food by requiring farmers to leave a certain amount of their land unplanted each year. In years of surplus, the government purchased grains from farmers to hold in government reserves to be used in years that provided...