A look at Agricultural Subsidies
Are farmers getting rich off of the government? Agriculture is federally subsidized, but let’s look at that statement with a dose of perspective.
The food and agriculture subsidies total percentage of the federal budget is 4 percent.
2015: Total Federal Spending
From that 4 percent:
76 percent is allocated to food and nutrition (for example, food assistance like WIC or SNAP);
7 percent helps pay for crop insurance (protecting farmers from crop failure);
7 percent is directed to conservation (leaving farmland fallow or turning it back to natural habitat);
7 percent is for commodity price supports;
1 percent is allotted toward miscellaneous.
In reality, the vast majority of “subsidies” are actually government welfare to the public, which are included in the Farm Bill.
Project outlays under the 2018 Farm Act, 2019 - 2023
Or to put it another way, of the 135.7 billion dollars of the United States federal budget directed toward agriculture in 2015, 108.5 billion went toward nutrition and 27 billion went to subsidies, insurance, and conservation. This means, for example, if we removed nutritional programs from the Farm Bill, agricultural would receive less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
Of note, the 9 percent allocated to insurance helps with the premiums, which means farmers only see money during a disaster (like loss of crop) and then insurance companies pay the farmer.
Trust me when I say farmers would rather have a crop to sell.
