How Farm Bills have changed and how it is hurting small farms.

My favorite quote I heard many years ago is one that we as consumers should always remember “without a farmer you would be naked, hungry, and sober”. With that thought we would think that the importance of the farmers and the land we have to produce food on would be valued, right? Agriculture has changed many times since people first started farming around 9500 BC, and as we can see in history even though the farmer is such an important role in society, they have not always been valued as such. While we are very different from farmers of the past, we still see struggles for farmers and continue to make changes. Unfortunately, even with struggles in history we still see an issue with poor choices we even make today. This leads to the current practices and asking, what do we have in place to protect farmers now, and with policies in place who is benefitting?

United states farmers have faced many ups and downs in agriculture since the early 1900’s. In 1920 it was reported that we had 6.5 million farms in the US (Berkman 2020) and in the early twenty’s prices were good and farmers managed well and provided to consumers. An issue that some farmers faced, was when farms took out large loans to buy neighboring parcels with the intent to expand, but then faced price drops in the market. At that time farmers did go to congress to ask for help, but nothing was put in place to give relieve to the farmers. Some farms were forced to sell while others were able to stay afloat. We then faced the Great Depression in 1929. While we had buyouts that happened in the early 1920’s, some farmers in 1929 then faced hardship and could not make payments on the loans they had taken out. Prices dropped, land lost value, decreased prices of land and farmers lost farms to the banks (Walbert n.d.). If the farmers and country wasn’t struggling enough, in the 1930’s farms suffered from the infamous Dust Bowl also referred to as “The Dry Thirties”.

In the 1930’s we started to see a lot of changes especially once the Dust Bowl began in 1931. The Dust Bowl lasted nearly a decade and the effect had serious effects on the environment as well as the economy (Editors 2009). The dust bowl was a result of a mixture of poor farming economics, weather changes, federal land policies, and farming on the great planes. The Dust Bowl caused drought, loss of crops, livestock, as well as death of people in effected areas. The winds ripped topsoil from the land Which contributed to the “Black Blizzard” in 1934 which brough the topsoil that was ripped from the Great plains formed as a thick cloud that reached all the way to New York. The dust clouds caused issues with dust pneumonia which killed several hundreds to thousands of people around that time. On April 14th, 1935, a thick cloud started in Oklahoma and stretched east carrying over three million tons of topsoil from the Great Plains. This was the worst of all large traveling storms and was referred to as “Black Sunday” (Editors 2009).

Farmers faced many struggles in the 1930’s and during that time we began to see several laws and acts put into place because of the financial and environmental struggles we were facing. With that we started to see some changes and things put in place to try to offset the effects we were seeing during this economic crisis with programs that were created under The New Deal. In 1933 the Commodity Credit Corporation also known as the CCC was created as an attempt to create relief for farmers. This program was interesting to me, but it contributed to other programs being added. The CCC offered risk free 12-month loans for selling their crop for profit, if the market price increased for the crops the farmer would pay off the loan, if the market dropped below a fixed price the farmer would then give the crop to the CCC and they would then deal with the storage issue. The same year the Agriculture Adjustment Administration the AAA was an act that was put in place that contributed to creating fixed prices in the market to increase prices, but also offered some of the first subsidies to farmers for replacing sections of their land from cash crops to grasses for soil conservation. This had positive and negative effect to the market between farmers and consumers. While on one hand it financially benefited the farmers, on the other it increased the prices to the financially stricken consumers by decreasing the supply of certain goods available in the market. In 1933 President Roosevelt signed the Agriculture Adjustment Act that’s intent was to help create emergency relief to lower prices of crops to help lesson the burden on consumers during the Great Depression. The drawback of this act was the increased limitations it created in the market for the production of some of the agricultural crops (Wikipedia, United States farm bill 2022). During this time, we also saw the formation of the Farm Credit Administration or the FCA which between 1934 and 1935 worked with farmers to help decrease current interest rates they were carrying. These programs were the governments first attempts to assist in economic welfare, but also was the first step towards the increase in federal authority we could see during the Great Depression. The Agriculture Adjustment Act was deemed unconstitutional because of the way it obtained the money needed for the subsidies. When the act was first put in place in 1933 the money was from an exclusive tax that was placed on companies that processed agricultural products. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 changed the policy that the funding would be provided by the federal government and not from a tax to processors (wikipedia n.d.)

While we have seen many changes in the agriculture industry, we also can see over several years many bills and laws that have changed or been put in place that can affect a farmer in many ways. While the hope we had would be to preserve family farms, the push over almost 100 years and the commercialization of agriculture has had its effects. In the mid 1930’s we had an estimated 7 million farms in the United States, today we have just over 2 million. With decreased support to family farms, it can make younger generations discouraged from carrying on the family’s legacy, because of this the agriculture industry has seen a decrease in interest as career choice. With this we can suspect to see a slow staggering effect as current students are our future teachers. This unfortunately will only encourage more corporate farming and large-scale operations to make up the difference which we only hope wont have negative impacts. Since the 1930’s the US farm bills are revised around every five years, and changes are made depending on current economic needs as seen by the government. While the question of who benefits is debatable, what we have seen a growing trend in is an increase in commercialized farming. This then really makes you ask yourself if these programs we currently have in place are benefiting those that may need it the most. Fast forward to the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 or Freedom to Farm Act, this changed policies allowing more flexibility with government loans over a 7-year period but were fixed with no reflection on the current market process and production. With this they also promised to increase exports but asked farmers to agree to lower government subsidies. This act over time was also considered the “Freedom to Fail” act by some. This farm bill we could see good and bad contributions to farmers and many changes that were made regarding qualifications, and repayments based on commodities percentages (wikipedia.org n.d.). Looking back at several of the bills and programs that came after the first in 1933, has slowly pushed farmers to be dependent on the government for help with not as much regulation on large corporate farms slowly pushing farmers out of the picture. The bill in 1996 excludes production of some fruits and vegetables, as well as other facets of the agriculture industry resulting in only helping some of the struggling farms and helping larger operations more.

Another hot topic that is included in a lot of the farm bills that we have seen passed is with the inclusion of food stamp benefits for the low income. We can consider Farm Bills as food bills especially because of the inclusion of food stamps for those who need them. The first food stamp program was established in 1939 and ran until 1943 with a peak participation of 4 million Americans. These were orange and blue stamps that were worth fifty cents for blue ones and a dollar for an orange for equal value of food they may buy with cash. It wasn’t until 1960 when Kennedy who witnessed issues with poverty, saw the importance in bringing back the food stamp program. In 1961 a pilot program was created to bring them back, and in 1964 was signed into law by President Johnson. While the program then you had to pay for the food stamps which is different from how the program is now, this put food stamps in a position to be included into farm bills that are passed (USDA 2018). While we have seen many times actions taken to try to take this important program away, this alone can be a reason to call farm bills Food Bills.

Looking at the last two farm bill acts we had in 2014 and 2018 we saw changes on many levels. The Agricultural Act of 2014 added new options for farmers for crop insurance, new conservation programs, as well as many modifications to the food stamp program. Between the last two farm bills that we have had passed I found many to find more positives and changes in the 2014 farm act than the 2018. The Agricultural Act of 2014 increased programs for specialty crops, bioenergy, and organic farming (wikipedia.org, Agricultural Act of 2014 n.d.). Unfortunately, the 2018 United States Farm Bill Act many do not agree with, and programs that were set to expire from the 2014 Act were not restarted. The most recent farm bill is debatably not in favor to farmers, but then they question is what kind of farmer benefits. The changes from a family farm perspective can also be dependent on how large that farm is. Some of the changes I found were very generous for those making almost a million dollars a year, now included as eligible to subsidies when before was not allowed for such a high-income bracket. To a very large dominating farmer this may seem very ideal, but for smaller competing farms this encourages an unfair market advantage. Another notable thing I found about the most recent bill was the lack of requirement of in person management of a farm that is eligible for subsidies. An article from taxpayer.net considered these two out of 10 worst provisions in the newest farm bill. They also called the new income limits if you can call them limits, provisions that have “Ruined over 30 years of common-sense limits to subsidy progress” (taxpayer.net 2018). This last bill while did give more to new farmers and hobbyists, those who have been slowly losing family farms are feeling left behind. Dairy farmers were affected by the changes as well from commodity programs coming to an end and being now converted to law. The Margin Protection Program MPP was replaced with Dairy Margin Coverage DMC which we then saw a domino effect of Michigan dairy farms slowly leaving and being replaced by much larger operations.

While on paper some of the laws may seem favorable to help the farmers, but over time I feel we have seen an increased push in a direction of commercial farming. Farmers can be limited on qualifying factors for insurance, subsidies, and other programs if they are willing to work under contracts and grow what you are told to. While at some points we saw more flexibility, we can push to decrease some of these current limitations especially to small scale farmers. The ability to enter a market independently is extremely challenging, and a farmer can get stonewalled at several turns. Increasing laws, rules, and regulations can limit a small farmer in many ways such as processing issues because of USDA requirements, requirements for sale of meat and other agricultural products. Because of this we have seen the push for contract farmers, complete vertical integration from an outside company leaving no flexibility to the farmer. While we have seen the importance of tracking from farm to table, the abilities of access to smaller farmers should be equal to large corporations. Without equal opportunity of small farmers compared to large scale companies we will see small farms slowly decrease over time. This I feel dramatically decreases food diversity options when commercial operations grow mass amounts of the same product. The unsustainability factor should be considered as we continue to move in such a direction. Diversification of the food options we have available is important, not only from a small business aspect, but also from a growing aspect as well. If we limit the varieties of what we grow we will see in increase with issues such as pests and disease. As we have come to see the negative effects of the use of many pesticides, and herbicides we previously used and their negative effects we should push for more change.

In conclusion, over the years we have seen many programs such as crop insurance and other programs, but if you research into some of the history of who founded them and where they came from, we can slowly begin to see some of the potential issues. We can see the worry with growing corporate America and the owner anonymity which can create unseen market dominance dictated by corporations with private shareholders. These growing issues we have seen in the agriculture industry I feel can reflect such issues, and unfortunately things like farm bills can be the only thing that can change or protect current policies and practices. While we can assume the original purpose of farm bills was to protect food security and help farmers, we must see how policies have changed over time and how farmers have been affected. We as consumers and a society need to be more vigilant and observant of changes like these to ensure we are moving towards a productive and sustainable future. Change in policies to help support smaller farmers, market options and opportunities, as well as more access to subsidies and programs to encourage organics farm diversification, and land preservation. These are things needed if we want to not only help the last of our family farms, but also the future of agriculture in the US.

Works Cited

Berkman, Seth. 2020. "How farming has changed in every state the last 100 years." Stacker. September 3. Accessed january 2022. https://stacker.com/stories/3989/how-farming-has-changed-every-state-last-100-years#:~:text=While%20American%20farming%20has%20certainly,come%20in%20at%20two%20million.

Editors, History.com. 2009. "Dust Bowl." History.com. October 27. Accessed 2022. https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/dust-bowl#:~:text=The%20Dust%20Bowl%20was%20the,failed%20across%20the%20entire%20region.

taxpayer.net. 2018. "Top 10 Worst Provisions in the 2018 Farm Bill." taxpayer.net. December 11. Accessed 2022. https://www.taxpayer.net/agriculture/top-10-worst-provisions-in-the-2018-farm-bill/.

USDA. 2018. "A Short History of SNAP." usda.gov. 9 11. Accessed 2022. https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/short-history-snap.

Walbert, David. n.d. The Depression for Farmers. Accessed 2022. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/depression-farmers.

wikipedia. n.d. "Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938." wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Adjustment_Act_of_1938.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. na. "History of agriculture." Wikipedia. Accessed 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture#:~:text=It%20was%20not%20until%20after%209500%20BC%20that,peas%2C%20lentils%2C%20bitter%20vetch%2C%20chick%20peas%20and%20flax.

—. 2022. "United States farm bill." .wikipedia.org. Accessed January 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_farm_bill.

wikipedia.org. n.d. "2018 United States farm bill." wikipedia.org. Accessed 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_farm_bill.

—. n.d. "Agricultural Act of 2014." wikipedia.org. Accessed 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Act_of_2014.

—. n.d. "Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996." wikipedia.org. Accessed 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Agriculture_Improvement_and_Reform_Act_of_1996.