Page 37 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

Billions of dollars are spent on supporting farmers, ranchers, rural communities and those in
need of food assistance, through hundreds of specific farm bill programs. More broadly, farm bill
advocates point out that all food consumers benefit by keeping food affordable and accessible.
All in all, farm state lawmakers like to point out that it’s a pretty small slice of total federal
spending. (See chart, above, courtesy of the House Committee on Agriculture.)

But when you look at the current breakdown of farm bill spending (see pie chart below), you can
easily have a different perspective. It’s called a “farm bill” but most of the money goes to the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.

The 2014 farm bill actually has 12 titles. When the legislation was signed into law, the CBO
projected that the total cost would be $489 billion over five years (2014-2018).
At that time, the nutrition section alone, which includes SNAP and several smaller domestic food
aid programs, accounted for 80 percent of the spending. (It should be noted the farm bill does not
authorize the two other major nutrition programs operated by USDA: school meals, and the
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Those are
authorized under a separate, child nutrition law.)

The sections of the bill that the public probably associates the most with farm bills are known in
agriculture circles as the “farm safety net.” That’s the combination of the commodity title (Title
I), which provides income and price support and marketing loans for grain, oilseed, cotton and
dairy producers, and the crop insurance title (Title XI).

Projected outlays for crop insurance and commodities represented an additional 13 percent of the
farm bill “pie” when the measure was first enacted.

The conservation title (Title II), which includes land-idling programs as well as “working lands”
programs that subsidize the cost of farm practices and equipment that save soil or water and
prevent pollution, roughly costs the same as the commodity title, or about 6 percent.
These four titles accounted for 99 percent of outlays: Nutrition, crop insurance, conservation and
commodity supports, according to the Congressional Research Service.

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