Slashing food, climate funds to boost subsidies would hurt farmers, hungry people

Cuts to funding for food assistance and “climate smart” agricultural conservation practices to increase USDA farm subsidies would hurt farmers in most states, including California, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. 

Farmers in 30 states would receive less funding if Congress diverted climate-smart funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, to increase farm subsidies, EWG has found. 

Table 1: Potential reduction in funding (FY24-FY26)

^{*Difference in funding if IRA “climate-smart” funding is used instead for commodity programs. Based on average share of national spending on commodity subsidies and conservation programs from 2019-2021} 

Reducing food assistance through new restrictions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to increase farm subsidies would lower federal spending in 29 states, according to EWG’s analysis. New restrictions to SNAP as outlined in legislation proposed by Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.). 

Table 2: If SNAP cuts are diverted to commodity subsidies, fewer federal dollars will likely go to these states

EWG used average commodity subsidy spending by state from 2019 to 2021 to reallocate the savings provided by potential IRA or SNAP cuts. 

Losing out: Farmers

Shifting $20 billion in IRA funds meant for climate-smart farm stewardship practices to increase price guarantees for covered commodities like cotton would mean many farmers would receive less federal funding. Including in major farm states like California, Florida, New York, Michigan , and Pennsylvania. Although all farmers and ranchers in all states are eligible for climate-smart funding, less than 30 percent of farmers and ranchers receive commodity subsidies. 

Losing out: Hungry people

California, New York, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania are among the states that would receive less federal funding if money saved by the restrictions in Johnson’s bill was used to increase farm subsidies. More importantly, 10 million people could lose food assistance, including 4 million children and 2 million older people. 

Losing out: Climate 

Many farmers and ranchers have offered to share the cost of practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or meet other environmental goals, but nearly two-thirds have been turned away due to lack of funding. 

Agriculture contributes a growing share of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, so rewarding farmers who take steps to reduce nitrous oxide and methane emissions is critical to meeting our climate goals. 

Winning: Wealthy farmers

Diverting food assistance and climate-smart funding to subsidy programs will mostly benefit the largest farms that grow covered commodities.

Many farm groups want to increase price guarantees for commodity subsidies – even though farmers producing these crops have earned record prices, and farm bankruptcies are at their lowest levels in decades. These subsidies overwhelmingly flow to the largest farmers – in 2021, the top 10 percent of subsidy recipients got 66 percent of all payments.

Over 20,000 of these farmers have received commodity subsidies for 37 consecutive years, and some payments flowed to residents of cities, not farmers, including one of former President Donald Trump’s neighbors.

Losing out: Taxpayers

Farm groups want increases in price guarantees, despite record farm spending through two Trump-era disaster assistance programs, the Market Facilitation Program, or MFP, and the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, or CFAP.

The MFP paid $23.2 billion for crop years 2018 and 2019 to compensate farmers for losses driven by tariffs China placed on agricultural imports from the U.S. in retaliation for Trump’s trade war. 

The CFAP paid $30.8 billion for two rounds of funding in 2020 and 2021, with most funds from both going to the largest and richest farms.

The MFP and CFAP outlays combined caused total federal farm spending to soar, from $16.2 billion, in 2017, to $44.1 billion, in 2020, a record level. In 2020, federal spending made up nearly half of total farm net income, according to the USDA.