Some history of the farm bill and US agriculture policy

Hopefully the links below provide some context for the current controversy over the farm bill. Agriculture policy of some sort has been a major component of national public policy since the early years of the republic - manifest destiny was in many ways an effort to provide farm land for the property-less folks out east who would also help settle the new territory.

Farm policy took a new form during the Great Depression beginning with the passage of the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1933, but codified in related legislation in 1938 which contained a requirement that the bill be updated every five years. It also contained a provision that allowed for the creation of a nutrition program, which would later become food stamps - then SNAP.

What this means is that the farm bill contains two separate, though related items: subsidies for farmers, and food for the poor. This has created broad support for the bill over time, but has led to the current conflict. Republicans have pushed for limits on food stamps and removing them from the farm bill while retaining the subsidies. So the farm bill can be though of in the broader context of the New Deal, and the battle against it - or at least the part that created nutrition programs.

Here are some links with further historical information:

- Wikipedia: Agriculture policy of the United States, and History of Agriculture in the United States.

- Wikipedia: United States Farm Bill. This provides a good, brief look at the history of these bills and a list of the major agriculture legislation passed since the late 19th Century.

- Infographic might provide the most efficient way to get an idea of the history of the farm bill.

- For - what seems to me to be - the most comprehensive list of farm bills and supporting information related to them dating back to 1935, click on the National Agriculture Law Center here.

- Snap to Health has FAQ's about the farm bill. 

- NPR: The Farm Bill: From Charitable Start to Prime Budget Target. This provides a good look at the impact the farm bill has on agriculture policy in the US. Click here for similar detail.

- USDA National Agriculture Library: Farm Bill.

The Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013

One of this week's major political stories was the narrow passage in the House of a farm bill which retained farm subsidies, but cut funding for food stamps. The Senate will not pass a similar bill, nor will the president sign it, so it won't go anywhere. But it has led to a broad range of commentary you - 2305 students anyway - might find applicable to the class.

- House Committee on Agriculture, Farm Bill.
- CBO cost estimate of HR 2624.
- The vote on the bill.
- From Thomas: Bill summary and status.

Here's a sampling of stories about the bill, more to come:

- Background from the NYT:

By splitting farm policy from food stamps, the House effectively ended the decades-old political marriage between urban interests concerned about nutrition and rural areas who depend on farm subsidies.

- And from the Wall Street Journal:

The assertive rank-and-file Republicans in the House, though, sank a bipartisan farm bill by amending it to cut $20 billion from food stamps over 10 years. This week, House leaders stripped food stamps from the bill altogether, stunning the farm lobby. With a lot of arm twisting and derisive commentary from Democrats, leaders squeezed a bill through the House 216-208 (with six Republicans and five Democrats not voting.) All the Democratic votes were no.

No one’s quite sure what happens next. House Ag Chairman Frank Lucas (R., Okla.) promised a separate food stamp bill as soon as he can achieve consensus. Mr. Lucas and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who wants to enact a farm bill, probably will try to get some food stamp bill through the House so they can get to a Senate-House conference and return with a compromise that will draw enough Democratic votes to offset Republican rank-and-file opposition.

But the House vote underscored a fundamental political reality in the House: A substantial bloc of Republicans, many of them relative newcomers, are determined to force confrontations as they press for sweeping changes to the food stamp program and other federal benefit programs long cherished by Democrats as opposed to pressing hard and then settling for compromises that pull policy slightly to the right. (One aside: As both conservative and liberal think tanks observed this week, details of the farm bill suggest that House Republican vows to cut government spending exempt farm subsidies.)

- The Cato Institute is critical of the bill:

But in passing the farm bill, Republicans demonstrated that they are just fine with bloated welfare programs as long as those welfare payments go to well-healed special interests.

In 2011, the last year for which full data is available, the average farm household had an income of $87,289, 25 percent higher than the average for all U.S. households. And about a third of the farm subsidies go to the largest four percent of farm operators. If you want to see real “welfare queens,” look no further than Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyler Farms, and Riceland Foods.