Farm subsidies: Where the money goes | IN 60 SECONDS

As AEI Visiting Scholar Eric Belasco explains, the biggest beneficiaries of American farm subsidies are the biggest farms with the least need. Two new policy proposals might help to save money for taxpayers while still bolstering smaller farms.

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[wishunter]

Damn, so you’re telling me the lower a farm’s revenue the lower their subsidies are? Say it ain’t so.

[celtgunn]

Oy! Big farms shouldn't be getting these large subsidies. It should be for the smaller ranches/farmers. Seriously!

When Winter Storm Atlas hit, it wiped out whole herds. Farmers lost every single animal. Imagine it, 300-600 or more. Depending upon the location and number of animals you had. It was heartbreaking to see. I lived there, in the heart of where Atlas hit. 6 days without heat, 3 days without flowing water. (Thankfully I had water stored) All but 1 house plant died, surprisingly none of my ball pythons died. Atlas was horrific.

Now that we're on the family farm, I fear having a storm like Atlas roll through. We're a small ranch. 4, 500 acres. 300 cows with calves & 6 bulls. Plus crops.

[daniellabassi]

It shouldn't exist at all. Then we'd have normal amounts of corn and it wouldn't be in our gas tanks.

[RichardBronosky]

But those huge farms need protection against Americans eating less and getting healthy! #PoesLaw

[nonyadamnbusiness]

That the majority of the subsidies go to a small percentage of farms is not surprising. Most of the production is concentrated in a few farms. It's the Pareto principle. Farming is a business. Businesses shouldn't be subsidized.

[DDDothager]

They were supposed to help family farmers.

[marksteele]

I wish I had been in an industry where the whole country was my backstop against "production, price, and income risks", makes it kind of hard to fail, doesn't it. Sounds a lot like corporate welfare.

[phebesdad]

I don't think there should be one

[vegansydmost]

I became a vegan, not in 60 seconds, but pretty much overnight, in 1973. I'm still whole food healthy vegan and sober too. I'll be 85 tomorrow! I think the government subsidies are obscene and corrupt.

[alikaostermiller]

so are the subsides meant to drive down the price of food or make sure farms don't go under?

[FireweedFarm]

These are huge problems, but the analysis here misses it. When I looked at average corn and soybean subsidies, 1995-2010, I found that the top 10% started at around 200 acres, assuming 50-50 corn-soybeans. That's not big enough to be a full sized farm. Most of the top 10% were family-sized farms, or similar but smaller, or similar but somewhat bigger, (and some are extended-family farms). The bottom 80% averaged much smaller than 200 acres! The statistics here are similar, and farm income has long been so low that farmers have had returns on equity and assets from current incomes, (which include subsidies, ) that have averaged in the low single digits, (vs agribusiness, well in the double digits, even in the 30% and 40% range at times. I've long been against incentives for farms getting bigger, but these statistics miss key facts. Today some of the smallest farms, (averaging less than 10 acres, ) probably are not included, but it's still very misleading. Subsidy caps are good, but a very weak compromise, because the real problems are in agribusiness, not agriculture. To follow the really big money, look at how much farm prices have been lowered by conservative, pro-agribusiness pressures in Congress, which drastically reduced minimum farm price floors, more and more, (1953-1995, ) and then ended them, (1996-2023). Farmers have received very low net farm incomes as they've massively subsidized the agribusiness buyers with below cost farm products, (below full costs most of the time since 1981 for major crops). Farmers have received less and less, even with subsidies. Where's talk of capping what agribusiness gets? The 4 biggest corn farmers have something like a combined 0.08% share, (0.0008), and for soybeans it's about 0.05% (0.0005). For many agribusiness categories it's 60% share or more. Smithfield had 16% share of sows in 2016, with 2, 500 large farms working for them, averaging a 1/2, 500th share each. So really, all subsidy programs are smokescreens that hide the abuse of all of these farmers, blaming these victims. Note that the biggest corn/soybean farmers have had the biggest reductions in what agribusiness has paid, prior to getting any subsidies, while agribusiness buyers have never shown any need for any of their much bigger subsidies per bushel, (times the massive quantities that they buy). With adequate price floor/supply management programs, (doing for farmers what other, much more concentrated industries regularly do for themselves, ) no subsidies are needed at all, and that's what the programs used to be like. All of this can be fairly easily documented, and I've done a lot of that in my videos on these issues. So yes, why is the real issue here not being covered? Not anywhere on YouTube? (Except in my videos.)

[bvegannow]

Convince gov to let everyone have an acre of free tax free fertile land to grow a food forest on and live on.
End farm subsidies. End tax
breaks to farms exsept those who grow healthy vegan food for human consumption exsept no large mono crops.
End mandatory school, ged and hsd requirements, age limits, minimum wage, and exsessive regs.
People should be able to learn how to do a good job they want so they can afford a house and car before 18.
For those who and whos parents cant afford it, tax deductible chairty and or the about 180, 000dollars spent on k thru 12 per student could pay for it and trash k thru 12 and some of that money could be used to promote more independence and healthy living.

[onekerri]

I know where we can save those most money; stop giving away the farm to the trespassers coming through the southern border.