House Budget Bill’s Top Farm Subsidy Loopholes and Giveaways

By Geoff Horsfield and Anne Schechinger

Farm subsidies already favor the largest farms. But the budget reconciliation bill the House will consider this week is packed with farm subsidy loopholes that would make the problem worse. 

These provisions could add tens of billions to the federal deficit and further tilt the playing field against small family farmers. 

Here are some of the worst farm subsidy loopholes and giveaways in the bill: 

• Increasing price guarantees. Only 40% of farms grow crops eligible for payments linked to reference prices, and the top 10% of those farms collected almost nearly three-quarter of all payments in 2023. But the budget bill would increase those price guarantees by 10% to 20% for all covered crops, in turn boosting subsidy payments, especially to the largest farms.
• Payments every year. Many people might think farm subsidies are designed to be paid only in time of need. But the bill would increase cotton, rice and peanut price guarantees so high that many farmers of these crops would receive a payment every year.
• Rice payments could triple. The bill would likely increase the average payment rice farmers get from $61 per acre to $175 per acre – an increase of 187% – even though rice growing profits remain high. Subsidies for cotton and peanuts would also increase dramatically.