Taxpayers for Common Sense works with a broad range of groups to enact significant farm policy reform. With the farm bill up for re-authorization this year, Congress must begin the process of weaning farmers from federal subsidies.

Outdated and ineffective farm policies waste billions of federal funds and no longer reflect the realities of 21st century agriculture. Essentially unchanged since being established over 70 years ago as temporary assistance measures during the Great Depression, current farm policies no longer reflect the needs of America's farmers, rural communities, consumers, or the tax paying public. Billions of dollars are funneled each year to an increasingly small number of large farming operations, while the majority of farmers and rural residents see little. In the 1930s farmers accounted for 20 percent of the US population and agriculture made up nearly 8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Today, farmers make up less than 2 percent of the US population and agriculture accounts for less than 1 percent of GDP. Farms that once averaged nearly 200 acres now average close to 500 acres per farm.

Dominated by an array of payment programs shelling out billions of dollars to a handful of the biggest corporate farms, America's farm policy has become the longest ongoing welfare program in the country – a welfare program that harms the majority of farmers and non-farmers alike, and has a detrimental effect on international trade. The United States should set an example to the world that agriculture policy can be fairer, more productive, and fiscally responsible.

Farm Policy Facts

Subsidy Payments Cost Taxpayers Billions:

• Between 1995 and 2005 federal farm subsidy payments totaled more than $164 billion.
• 10 percent of recipients have collected 73 percent of all subsidies amounting to $120.5 billion since 1995.
• The largest 15% of subsidized farms took nearly two-thirds of all payments.
• Subsidies for ethanol(pdf) add an additional cost to taxpayers of five to eight billion dollars per year.

Farm Policy Overwhelmingly Benefits Corporate Agribusiness:

• Only 1/3 of America's farmers collect farm payments at all. Farmers who grow fruits, nuts, livestock and other foods instead of one of the “right” 15 program crops, receive nothing and successfully compete in the marketplace without government checks.
• For corn, soybeans and wheat, the wealthiest 10% of farms average $2.5 million in net worth, about ten times the wealth of the average U.S. household, and they receive half of the subsidy payments.
• According to the USDA, 8 percent of producers receive 78 percent of the subsidies.
• Of those receiving payments, 80 percent get less than $1,000 per year.
• In 2003, median wealth of farm households ($416,250) was five times the estimated median wealth of all U.S. households ($89,578), according to USDA.

Subsidies Hurt Family Farms:

• The 2002 Farm Bill allocated fifteen times more funding for farm subsidies than for economic investment in all of rural America. Yet large farms that get the bulk of commodity payments comprise less than 1% of the rural population.
• Corporate consolidation has led to a dramatic loss of farms. In 1950 there were 5.5 million farms in the U.S. Currently, around 2 million remain. Farmland in production, however, has remained the same.
• Large operations receive the bulk of farm payments but comprise only 10 percent of U.S. farms.
• For the most subsidy-dependent U.S. counties, farm subsidies are associated with poor economic growth, according to a Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank economist.