Farm Subsidy Direct Payment Analysis

For decades, the farm subsidy lobby has claimed that if the producers it represents could earn their living in the marketplace, support provided by taxpayers through periodic "farm bills" could be invested instead in such perennially short-changed priorities as conservation, nutrition assistance for low income Americans, and rural development. Though net farm income reached a record level of $88.7 billion in 2007, propelled by high market prices for major crops, Washington still sent out over $5 billion of taxpayers' money in direct payment farm subsidies to over 1.4 million recipients. Over 60 percent of the subsidy was pocketed by just 10 percent of the recipients -- the largest and generally wealthiest subsidized farming operations in the country.

See the Database

Featured Press:

Areas of Focus
Disqus Comments

Related News

Continue Reading

Do billionaires get farm subsidies?

A blockbuster report by the Government Accountability Office revealed that more than 1,300 “high-income” farmers received subsidies from the federal crop insurance program. But Congress has barred the...