House Republican Farm Bill Draft Would Boost Farm Subsidies by $47.3 Billion.

A small number of the largest farms would cash in, primarily cotton, rice, and peanut producers from the South. The vast majority of farmers nationwide would see little, if any, benefit.

(This article was co-written with Jake Davis.)

The Republican House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill draft will be marked up tomorrow, May 23rd, during an 11am EST committee meeting. Committee members will have their first chance to officially add or remove provisions from Chair Glenn Thompson’s (R-PA) “Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024.”

While there are many contentious issues likely to emerge during the Farm Bill debate, one is likely to be Thompson’s core proposal to increase funding for farm subsidies. Thompson’s proposal “raises reference prices,” the effective trigger for federal payments to farmers who raise commodity crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice (OUR THOUGHTS ON THE REFERENCE PRICE ISSUE HERE AT THE BARN RAISER.)

Who Benefits from the Thompson draft?

The University of Illinois-based farmdocDAILY released an analysis of Thompson’s Commodity Title proposal earlier today. “Spending Impacts of House Proposal for Commodity Title Changes”¹ finds that increasing statutory references prices will have varying impacts between crops and regions.

“Base acres in rice, peanuts, and seed cotton gain much more than corn, soybeans, and wheat. Counties in the South and the Delta region gain much more than the rest of the United States. A conservative estimate of increased commodity title spending is over $30 billion,” the analysis stated. Their analysis includes a map of potential gains per acre in spending under the House Proposal:

Cotton, Rice, and Peanut Producers By the Numbers.

The number of cotton, rice and, peanut producers that will disproportionately reap the vast majority of benefits from the House Republican draft is quite small. According to the latest Ag Census, only 23,126 of the nation’s 1,900,487 farms raise these crops, a mere 1.2%. An even smaller number of farmers raise a large market share of these crops (what we call the “Monopoly Farmers” of these three commodities).

As we reported earlier in The Cocklebur, Thompson’s approach to raising reference prices is expected to benefit fewer than 6,000 farms nationwide according to an analysis from the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Similar to farmdocDaily, EWG found that raising reference prices would help only 0.3% of the nation’s nearly 2 millions farms, mostly large peanut, cotton, and rice operations in Southern states.

Predictably, a large number of Thompson’s political donations come from large commodity producers and organizations where these crops are grown. Thompson’s draft is receiving praise from those same beneficiaries, including the National Cotton Council, USA Rice, U.S. Peanut Federation, American Cotton Shippers Association, American Peanut Shellers Association, Southern Cotton Growers, Alabama Peanut Producers Association, Autauga Quality Cotton Association, Cotton Warehouse Association of America, North Carolina Cotton Producers Association, the Southern Cotton Ginner Association, and more.

Thompson’s Commodity Title Doesn’t Add Up.

Agri-Pulse analysis and reporting on Thompson’s draft estimates that federal direct spending on commodity programs would increase $50.6 billion over the next 10 years. Thompson is proposing a cost-offset through changes to the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), though the Congressional Budget Office has a much more conservative estimate of savings between $0-$8 billion over 10 years for CCC reforms.

Agri-Pulse also reported that Thompson’s draft would likely increase enrolled commodity program acres, increasing commodity tile spending by $9.2 billion-$10.8 billion during the next decade.

1. Schnitkey, G., J. Coppess, N. Paulson, B. Sherrick and C. Zulauf. "Spending Impacts of House Proposal for Commodity Title Changes." farmdoc daily (14):96, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, May 21, 2024.

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The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.