Farm Policy Facts

Subsidy Spotlight: Brazil

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EDT

As the United States Congress begins debate of the 2012 Farm Bill, America’s biggest competitors on the global marketplace have been steadily increasing their rates of subsidization, according to a study by DTB Associates.

And one of the biggest offenders is also one of the biggest agricultural superpowers and biggest critics of U.S. farm policy: Brazil.

“Overall government support for Brazilian agriculture has mushroomed over the past decade,” the report noted. “The government has raised support prices for a range of commodities and increased funding for other programs as well.”

Among the most egregious examples included in the detailed eight-page country profile...

2011 Indemnity Payments Already Surpass Historic Record, Still Climbing

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EDT

With claims still streaming in — only an estimated 81 percent of expected claims have been finalized — crop insurance companies have already paid out a record $9.1 billion in indemnity payments to America’s farmers in 2011. This has already surpassed the former record of $8.67 billion in indemnities paid in 2008, according to USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA).

“Working as designed since 2008, more than $27 billion in private-backed crop insurance payouts over the past four years have helped farmers pick up the pieces after natural disasters or market drops,” said Keith Collins, former USDA Chief Economist. “Without crop insurance in place, those billions in damages would have fallen onto the laps of lenders, input suppliers, marketers, land owners and farm families, just as the economy was spiraling downward and unemployment was soaring,” he said.

February Follies — the Budget and Agriculture

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Agriculture is a unique industry in so many ways. One particular way—it is perhaps the only area of the federal budget to have shrunk in the past 10 years, yielding cuts even as it was coming in under budget.

Funding for farm policy over the last five years (’07-’11) averaged $12.9 billion per year. This is a 28% reduction from the ’02-’06 average of $17.9 billion and a 31% reduction from the $18.8 billion average from ’97-’01.

After cuts and other recent savings, the budget for next five years (’12-’16) is expected to remain in this low range.

Agriculture also gets a unique amount of attention from its critics and from budget hawks, despite its being so fundamentally important, and despite its being such a small portion of the overall budget.