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Home – U.S. Senate News – Tipping the Scales: How Washington Pays Mega Farms to Beat Family Farms

Tipping the Scales: How Washington Pays Mega Farms to Beat Family Farms

Connor Semelsberger | Katelynn Healy

With food prices on the rise and Americans re-assessing their monthly food budgets, the Senate Agriculture Committee is set to mark up the farm bill today. Packed with agriculture subsidies originating during the great depression, the farm bill has been informed by a belief that these subsidies “save the struggling family farm,” but the facts show this system has been one of the very things that have accelerated its decline.

Like many subsidy programs, the current system of crop insurance, commodity price and income support, and disaster assistance programs boost the profits of large operations while accelerating the decline of small, independent farms. Washington needs to reform the current subsidy program structure because it rewards consolidation instead of strengthening America’s food system.

With the current bill expiring on September 30, lawmakers are moving quickly towards a final five-year package that will decide who is eligible and how the rules are applied to hundreds of billions of dollars in agricultural support. The question is not simply how much Washington spends on agriculture, but whether the next farm bill will continue to reward consolidation or begin correcting it.

For decades, the federal government has been distorting the market by favoring the nation’s largest agricultural operations while small, independent farms receive little to no support. According to the Environmental Working Group, about 69% of all farms receive no subsidy funding, while the top 10% of recipients have captured around 75-79% of payments over decades. Washington tends to reward farms of scale, acreage, and commodity production rather than the small operations that are most vulnerable to hardships.  

These consequences are visible across rural America. While federal support has increased, the number of........

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