Farm Bill Politics:
Exploring the Outdated Relationship between
Supplemental Nutrition Policy and Agriculture Subsidies
Lila Cardell
Abstract
The farm bill is one of the largest and oldest legislative arrangements in the United
States, and was considered innovative at its inception. While stakeholders were
closely aligned during the initial wave of legislation, an increase in the quantity
and breadth of programs in the farm bill abrogates those relationships. The legislative relationship between supplemental nutrition efforts and agricultural subsidies
creates a complex web of individuals and organizations with disparate interests who
have a stake in the development of United States food policy. Although Congress is
ultimately responsible for the creation of the Farm Bill, legislators must weigh the
interests of various stakeholders in their decisions to fund programs. As a Congress
attempts to create a comprehensive 2013 Farm Bill, it is imperative that legislators
are mindful of these incongruities and the political, structural, and ethical issues
affecting supplemental nutrition policy, and consider dissolving the outdated relationship between supplemental nutrition policy and agricultural subsidies.
About
the
Author
Lila Cardell is a Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University,
where she is concentrating in public and nonprofit management with a focus on
food security. Prior to attending Cornell, she worked as a Senior Consultant at
Ernst & Young and as a Senior Operations and Finance Analyst at the non-profit
Community Environmental Center. Lila has a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and
Accounting from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
F a r m B i l l P o l i t i c s 5
Introduction
C
ongressional inertia in the form of budget standoffs, fiscal cliffs, and sequestration has exposed the tenuous and outdated relationship between
supplemental nutrition policy and agricultural subsidies. The inability
of the United States Senate and House of Representatives to reconcile
and pass a new farm bill in 2012 and the general congressional budget stalemate
in late 2012 resulted in a nine-month extension of the 2008 Farm Bill to avoid expiration of crucial programs such as food stamps and crop insurance programs.
Although the temporary extension maintained funding for supplemental nutrition
programs, the contentious battle to create a new farm bill reveals the conflicting
demands of stakeholders and the hazards of combining public health policy and
agricultural economic policy in the same legislation. As a new Congress attempts
to create a comprehensive farm bill in 2013, it is imperative that legislators are
mindful of these incongruities and the political, structural, and ethical issues
affecting supplemental nutrition policy, and consider permanently severing the
relationship between supplemental nutrition policy and agricultural subsidies.
Historical Legislative Context
The term “farm bill” refers to federal omnibus bills that cover a wide spectrum of
programs from agriculture to renewable energy and are negotiated approximately
every five years. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal department responsible for implementing farm bill policies. While the Agricultural and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 was the first farm bill to officially
include funding for both food stamps and agriculture subsidies, federal intervention in both the agriculture sector and supplemental nutrition policy began during
the Great Depression.
The combination of advanced farm technology and reduced export opportunities after World War I led to agriculture surpluses and plummeting prices.
In 1929, the Agricultural Marketing Act was passed in an attempt to stabilize
market prices by creating the Federal Farm Board, which distributed loans to
farm cooperatives to “prevent and control surpluses in any agricultural commodity through orderly production and distribution.”1 However, the bill did not set
production limits and farmers realized the board would pay for all excess crops
and increased production, thereby further decreasing prices and quickly depleting program funds. The 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act aimed to fix this er-
6
C a r d e l l ror by giving direct payments to farmers who voluntarily limited production or
destroyed excess livestock, based on a calculation of land acres owned; however,
this was irrespective of actual production capacity or market demand.2 The 1938
Agricultural Adjustment Act amended certain funding provisions in the 1933 Act,
and is considered “permanent legislation,” meaning that any lapse in a farm bill
reverts commodity policies to 1938 acreage allocation calculations.3
Although agricultural support was intended to be a temporary solution to
market conditions following World War I and during the Great Depression, farm
bills continue to be passed by Congress and now include direct payments for
farmers regardless of market conditions, as well as conditional revenue programs
such as crop insurance, which reimburse farmers for crop losses. Although not a
direct subsidy, the crop insurance program creates the same incentives as subsidies by encouraging farmers to plant lower-yielding crops or not mitigate losses
through cover cropping, because the insurance pays farmers back at the inflated
market price post-disaster, not the market price when the insurance was originally purchased. The current farm bill also provides farmers access to loans at
below-market interest rates and funding to subsidize exports.4
Supplemental nutrition policy evolved directly from agricultural subsidy
policy, as the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) was created in 1933 to
distribute surplus crops and livestock after public outcry over the intentional destruction of pigs and cotton as a method to reduce supply and to maintain higher
market prices.5 The FSRC was renamed the Food Surplus Commodities Corporation in 1935 and permanent funding was provided for the acquisition and distribution of surplus commodities for eligible schools, non-profits, and summer camps.6
The USDA still maintains a Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) that
purchases commodities on behalf of state agencies who distribute the food to
eligible low-income women, infants, children, and elderly.7 As crop surpluses
persisted throughout the 1930s and poverty rates increased, supplemental nutrition was expanded using a voucher system as part of President Roosevelt’s New
Deal. Eligible participants purchased orange food stamps equivalent to normal
food expenditures and received a 50 percent match in blue coupons, which could
be spent on specific surplus products that the government previously purchased
from farmers.8 Food stamp distribution ended when World War Two began and
surpluses dwindled due to a decline in agricultural production and an increase in
foreign demand for food.
F a r m B i l l P o l i t i c s 7
Although agricultural subsidy programs continued, a new food stamp program was not enacted until 1961 when President Kennedy piloted a program that
sold discounted coupons for perishable food. In 1964, President Johnson passed
the Food Stamp Act, which provided eligible low-income recipients with access to
food vouchers for all food items except alcohol and imported foods.9 This bill was
negotiated alongside the Food and Agricultural Act of 1965, although the Agricultural and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 was the first farm bill that officially
provided funding for both food stamps and agriculture subsidies. Participation in
the food stamp program has risen steadily since 1964 to the current level of 46.6
million participants at a cost of $78.4 billion for the year 2012.10 The most recent
farm bill was passed in 2008 with a total of $288 billion in funding. In this bill,
food stamps were relegated to the new Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with a goal of improving the nutrition of low-income individuals.11
The 2008 Farm Bill officially expired on October 1, 2012, but Congress was
unable to agree on a new comprehensive farm bill to replace it. While the Senate was able to pass its version of the bill in 2012, the House of Representatives
refused to bring its version to a vote, due to disagreement over funding levels for
SNAP, despite bipartisan and bicameral support for ending direct agricultural
subsidy payments.12 On January 1, 2013 Congress was forced by the “fiscal cliff”
to pass a temporary extension of the 2008 bill, which protected SNAP benefits but
maintained the current subsidy payment structure at a cost of $5 billion for the
nine months until its expiration on September 30, 2013.13
Farm Bill Stakeholders
The legislative relationship between supplemental nutrition efforts and agricultural
subsidies creates a complex web of individuals and organizations with disparate
interests who have a stake in the development of food security policy. Stakeholders
include politicians, farmers, food processors, hunger relief organizations, environmental nonprofits, supermarkets, and all of their affiliated lobbies. Their interests
are extraordinarily diverse: large agricultural producers want to expand food exports, small farmers are interested in startup capital, nonprofits strive to provide for
the food insecure, food producers seek to minimize the cost of inputs, schools need
funding for lunch programs, and organizations try to conserve natural resources.
Although Congress is ultimately responsible for the creation of a farm bill,
and the USDA is responsible for its implementation, legislators must weigh the
8
C a r d e l l interests of various stakeholders in their decisions to fund programs. In the United
States, the lobbying system allows organizations or coalitions supporting a particular interest to pay advocates to influence public policy on their behalf through
congressional persuasion and public media campaigns. The immense size of the
U.S. agriculture sector provides the basis for the existence of the massive farm
lobby, which spent almost $90 million during the farm bill renegotiations in
2012.14 Such stakeholder impact on congressional decision-making is supported by
Joel Aberbach and Bert Rockman’s findings in the early 1970s that “84 percent of
congressmen concede that the influence that some interests have in the administrative process and the power that agencies themselves wield sometimes comes at
the expense of the general interest.”15 The inability of Congress to pass a new farm
bill in 2012 demonstrates that the extreme variability of interest and incessant
negotiation process among stakeholders has a significant impact on how farm bill
programs are funded and implemented.
Stakeholders were more closely aligned during the initial wave of farm and
food legislation but an increase in the quantity and substance of programs in the
farm bill has abrogated those relationships. During the Great Depression, the government utilized crop surpluses to provide food to food insecure populations, and
increases in crop demand due to government purchases raised market prices for
farmers. Now, both groups compete against each other for farm bill cash subsidies.
Initially, farmers primarily resided in rural districts, while food stamp recipients
lived in cities, establishing a quid pro quo relationship that allowed both urban
and rural congressional representatives to satisfy their respective constituencies.
However, the nationwide expansion of the food stamp program reduces the need
for urban legislators to support rural farm legislation. Early versions of food stamp
programs were restricted to provide surplus goods only. They were later restricted
to domestically produced crops, which maintained legislative alignment between
the needs of domestic producers and domestic consumers. Now, SNAP allows
consumers to purchase both domestic and foreign foods, and provides subsidies
for producers to export food while domestic food insecurity is rising.
Shifting program regulations and priorities increase the tension between
stakeholder groups. Early farm bills providing production control subsidies that
paid farmers not to grow crops in order to increase market prices were in contradiction with programs supplying below-market rate loans that supported creditfueled expansion.16 Direct payments to farmers based on owned acreage drives
up land prices as sellers internalize potential subsidy revenue, making it difficult
F a r m B i l l P o l i t i c s 9
for new farmers to start farm operations. The farm bill’s designation of fruits and
vegetables as “specialty crops” and the prohibition of growing those crops on subsidized land directly undermine farm bill programs supporting increases in fruit
and vegetable consumption.17 Conservation programs seeking to protect soil and
water resources are juxtaposed against policies that prohibit conservation measures such as cover cropping on subsidized land.18 The World Trade Organization
(WTO) considers most crop subsidies, import restrictions, and crop insurance
programs to be against free trade. The U.S. has been subject to sanctions as a result of farm bill policies, increasing the total effective cost of the bill and exposing
the U.S. to retaliatory subsidies from other countries.19
The increasing size and breadth of the farm bill has led to the creation of a stakeholder web so large and complex that it is impossible for the various interest groups
and policies to effectively align. The powerful farm lobby will continue to have a significant influence on all farm bill policies until these contradictions are remedied
or the legislative relationship between food stamps and subsidies is eliminated.
The Role of Federalism in the Farm Bill
Federalism, the relationship between federal and state governments, can have
a significant role in how a program is funded and implemented. The concept of
federalism in the United States is implicitly endorsed by the Constitution and its
legacy can be seen in the design of agriculture and food stamp programs. The
1933 Agricultural Marketing Act was funded by a direct tax on producers of food
products and was declared unconstitutional, as “it is a statutory plan to regulate
and control agricultural production, a matter beyond the powers delegated to the
federal government. The tax, the appropriation of the funds raised, and the direction for their disbursement are but parts of the plan.”20 The 1938 Agricultural
Adjustment Act resolved the tax issue by funding it with general taxes. However,
the justification for federal involvement in state agricultural policy remains under
a loose interpretation of interstate commerce whereas cooperative federalism has
allowed states to increase the value of SNAP benefits to residents.
The 1939 food stamp program was part of the second wave of New Deal
policies that embodied cooperative federalism, which entailed redistribution of
responsibilities between federal and state agencies by purchasing surplus foods
and giving them to local agencies to distribute to recipients through matching
vouchers. The 1964 Food Stamp Act was part of President Johnson’s Great Society
10
C a r d e l l program and reflected a shift to creative federalism, which went beyond cooperative federalism to include local agencies in program design and execution. The
Food Stamp Act of 1977, which eased food stamp program rules by eliminating the
voucher purchase requirement, reflects the New Federalism concept of decentralization and reduced red tape.21 The devolution movement embodied by President
Clinton’s welfare reform in 1996 shifted more power to states, including eliminating a standardized national application for food stamps, however this was countered by federal regulations eliminating benefits for immigrant populations and
creating work requirements for most SNAP recipients.22
Although food stamps are funded and regulated at the federal level by the
USDA, states and municipalities are responsible for the certification of recipients
and the issuance of benefits. The cost of administering the program on the state
level is evenly split between the USDA and the relevant state agency. This structure encourages local agencies to minimize administrative overhead, however
subjects the implementation of the program to local economic fluctuations. Increasing food insecurity and decreasing municipal resources have led to a severe
decline in application processing rates on the state level.23 Some local agencies
responded by attempting to streamline application processing by introducing
comprehensive applications for multiple federal assistance programs including
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF.) The USDA also tried to increase
program efficiency by moving from food vouchers to Electronic Benefit Transfer
(EBT) cards to automatically load funds for both programs. However, the USDA
reports that only eight percent of SNAP recipients rely on TANF. This may indicate that SNAP-eligible applicants are simply filling out unnecessary paperwork
if local agency policy requires applications be completed as a holistic aid package.24 As state budgets have been significantly reduced in the past decade, local
agencies combine the implementation of programs; however, this should not come
at the price of participant dissatisfaction, or administrative inefficiency. Federal
program regulations permit states to apply for waivers to abrogate certain SNAP
policies, another example of cooperative federalism in food stamp legislation. The
requirement that states share in the cost of administering SNAP also creates an
incentive on a state and local level to create complementary policies to reduce
food insecurity. There is limited research on the effectiveness of state modifications to SNAP policy, but it would be beneficial to obtain timely, quality data on
state program variation due to federalism, in order to share best practices among
states and improve the overall program.25
F a r m B i l l P o l i t i c s 11 Whereas Federalism is a defining characteristic of food stamp programs, it is
absent in agriculture subsidy programs. Direct agriculture subsidies are provided
via federal check to farmers and marketing loans and crop insurance are provided by the USDA Risk Management Agency. Because states bear no direct costs
for agricultural supports and farmers merely have to prove land ownership, not
production, to receive direct payments, there is no incentive for states to modify
programs to save money and no local accountability for the level of benefits provided. Even though there are significant regional differences in arability of land
and susceptibility for natural disasters, states have no motivation to improve production conditions or minimize disasters. The design of the farm bill epitomizes
the concept of opportunistic federalism, which Tim Conlan described as a “system
that allows–and often encourages–actors in the system to pursue their immediate interests with little regard for the institutional or collective consequences”26
The combination of a federally-managed economic subsidy program and a statemanaged social welfare program results in wild variability in accountability and
oversight standards for state and federal politicians and program administrators.
New Public Management fascination with performance measurement also
reveals a particular complication of opportunistic federalism in the design of omnibus bills like the farm bill. Conlan forewarned that “although outcome-based
accountability has the potential to free grant recipients from rigid process-based
systems, Opportunistic Federalism can interfere with realizing this potential. Indeed, striving for strict performance accountability can have significant centralizing effects.”27 In the case of SNAP, the program has seen an increase in federal eligibility guidelines and an increase in federal evaluation reporting requirements.
While performance measurement aims to increase accountability and program
efficiency by valuing outcomes over processes, the diversity of farm bill programs
and competing stakeholder interests make it fairly impossible to isolate programspecific goals. Evaluation of a social service program such as SNAP is difficult
enough without the additional pressure of the efficacy of other programs. In addition, it is impossible to determine the impact the entanglement of intergovernmental interests has on the effectiveness of individual programs in the farm bill.
Nutritional Limitations of the Farm Bill
The lack of nutritional guidelines in SNAP regulations is likely related to the program’s agricultural origins as a channel to divert crop surpluses during the Great
Depression. Most food products can be purchased using SNAP funds with the
12
C a r d e l l exception of prepared foods, alcohol, and tobacco.28 Although the federal government issues dietary guidelines through a joint initiative between the USDA and
the Department of Heath and Human Services, the USDA does not summarily
align its policies with those guidelines. SNAP differs from other USDA supplemental nutrition programs such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Commodity Surplus Food Program (CSFP), and the National School Lunch Program
(NSLP) in that there is no specific nutritional objectives intended to be achieved
by program funds.
As a result of the lack of program guidelines, as well as underlying economic
conditions, SNAP recipients typically seek to maximize program funds by purchasing the least expensive calories available. Agriculture subsidies for specific
commodities combined with commodity import barriers encourage domestic overproduction of “cheap calories” such as bread, cereal, and high-fructose corn syrup
products. Agricultural subsidy programs specifically prohibit growing fruits and
vegetables on subsidized land, creating a disincentive for farmers to grow those
crops and raising market prices, in contradiction with federal nutrition guidelines
recommending an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption.29 A 2006 USDA
report found that in order for Americans to meet dietary guidelines for fruits and
vegetables, U.S. farmland allocated for vegetables would have to increase by 137
percent and farmland allocated for fruit would have to increase by 100 percent.30
The same study also found that Americans over-consume grains and could meet
dietary requirements with a reduction of 5.6 million acres allocated for wheat production.31 Placing SNAP legislation alongside subsidy legislation supporting corn,
wheat, and rice production, and not incentivizing fruit and vegetable production
leads to the consumption of the former over the latter, and makes it economically
unfeasible for food stamp recipients to follow recommended dietary guidelines.
Congress directly contributes to the consumption of subsidy products
through the distribution of surplus commodities through the CFSP and the NSLP.
Commodities are provided either for free or at a significant discount and are typically meats, eggs, cheese, and potatoes. While the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act
of 2010 illustrated a rare step in disassociating consumption policies from production subsidies by significantly increasing fruit and vegetable requirements under
the NSLP, the act does not provide sufficient funding to schools to meet requirements at current market prices. Either more funds must be allocated to purchase
healthy food or agricultural policies must be changed to promote alignment with
nutritional requirements.32 The 2008 Farm Bill included funding for innovative
F a r m B i l l P o l i t i c s 13 food and farm programs such as the Farmers Markets Promotion Program, Community Food Project Grants, and the Beginning Farmers Development Program.
None of these programs, however, were re-authorized under the temporary farm
bill extension and will continue to be marginalized as long as they are forced into
legislation alongside commodity subsidy programs.33
The combination of limited nutritional guidance, the relatively high cost of
fruits and vegetables to subsidized grains and corn products, and the scarcity of
supermarkets in low-income areas may explain the lack of nutritional improvement gained by participation in the SNAP program.34 Although economists, politicians, and nutritionists have attempted to demonstrate a correlation between
increasing SNAP participation rates and increasing obesity rates, only a slight
causal relationship has been definitively shown, and only in non-elderly adult
women.35 Still, regardless of the structural alignment of the program with agriculture programs, nutritional priorities continue to be influenced by farm policy
supporters instead of the health and human services community. Supplemental
nutritional policy would benefit from less correlation with farm production priorities and greater alignment with nutritional guidelines.
Federalism offers a solution to this challenge by providing opportunities for
local programs to supplement SNAP. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg
has been aggressive in lobbying the USDA to limit products that can be purchased
with SNAP funds, such as sweetened drinks, but has been generally unsuccessful in getting sufficient federal support. Instead, Bloomberg created programs to
incentivize the use of SNAP for fruits and vegetables by giving greenmarkets machines to accept EBT cards and providing a $2 “Health Bucks” coupon for every
$5 a customer spends at a greenmarket using EBT.36 Health Bucks can also be acquired by attending healthy food demonstrations at the markets and demonstrate
an innovative way for local agencies to make federal programs more effective
through collaboration. The USDA is currently piloting a similar program in Massachusetts where recipients receive a 30 percent subsidy of produce automatically
credited to their EBT card.37 In Philadelphia, the Department of Health and the
Food Trust, a local nonprofit, created the Healthy Corner Store Network, which
provides small neighborhood retailers with refrigerated cases, shelving and technical assistance to increase the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables available for
sale.38 Although the federal government does not provide specific nutritional guidance for SNAP, state and local jurisdictions can improve the nutrition of recipient
through complementary food security policies.
14
C a r d e l l Ethical Considerations
Ethical inconsistencies abound in the farm bill due to the combination of agriculture, a for-profit commercial venture, and food security, a fundamental human
right. As Robert Dahl asserted, public administration cannot be value-neutral and
the different sets of values between for-profit and public benefit ventures affect
the definition and determination of the end goals of public administration programs.39 The combination of SNAP and agricultural subsidies in the farm bill may
lead to multi-party support of the overall legislation, but it diminishes the opportunity to recognize the value adjustments associated with each program than if
each program had been deliberated and evaluated separately. Value adjustments
include the identification of the distribution of taxpayer funds to individuals or
businesses as either upholding a right or bestowing a privilege. This designation
impacts how programs are developed and administered as well as recipient perceptions of both themselves and of government in general. Although economists
might attempt to create value-neutral models to support policy approaches, public
administrators have the opportunity to leverage underlying values to engage recipients and strengthen programs.
In 1996, President Clinton’s welfare reform legislation barred access to food
stamps from immigrants who had been in the U.S. for less than five years. Although subsequent bills have carved out exemptions to that policy, the introduction of immigration issues into food security legislation revealed the value adjustments made by legislators about citizen and immigrant rights. Such reforms also
impacted how immigrants perceive themselves relative to the general population.
The agriculture sector has continually insisted that migrant farm workers are
necessary due to labor shortages and this creates an ethical conflict where farm
bill policy supports access to foreign labor but refuses to uphold minimum wage
or fair labor standards, or access to sufficient food.
Federal legislators seeking to eliminate or minimize SNAP often point to instances of program fraud or abuse, penalizing local recipients for systemic issues.
Food stamp fraud includes applicants falsifying documents or reselling vouchers,
as well as theft of benefits by local agency staff. Although the introduction of EBT
cards allows for more oversight due to electronic trails, the existence of fraud or
abuse in social service programs has negative effects on the perception of the
program as a whole by recipients, legislators, and the general public. Fraud prevention and detection is integral to the survival of a program such as SNAP, which
F a r m B i l l P o l i t i c s 15 is already subject to scrutiny from a large network of stakeholders. As befits the
entangled nature of SNAP, responsibility for prevention and deduction is shared
between local agencies and the USDA.
To reduce fraud and abuse, Arizona and New York State required fingerprinting to receive food stamps in order to prevent individuals from sharing benefits.
Although the federal government has the responsibility for determining recipient eligibility, state prerogative regarding certification allowed the fingerprinting
policies to exist. In New York State, the policy was eliminated in 2007 but New
York City had received an exemption to continue fingerprinting recipients. In May
2012, Governor Andrew Cuomo forbid fingerprinting against the wishes of Mayor
Michael Bloomberg of New York City who claimed the requirement reduced fraud
by $35 million over the prior decade. New York City Council speaker Christie
Quinn and local hunger nonprofits claimed that the requirement was deterring
eligible recipients and that fraud could be prevented through other measures such
as more thorough review of applications by agencies and online monitoring of
EBT transfers.40 This case reveals that the ethical implication of being fingerprinted was valued differently on the federal, state, and local levels. Joe Soss
hypothesizes that “program designs structure clients’ experiences in ways that
shape their beliefs about the effectiveness of asserting themselves at the welfare
agency. Because clients associate the agency with government as a whole, these
program-specific beliefs, in turn, become the basis for broader orientations toward
government and political action.”41 By requiring recipients to be fingerprinted,
local agencies can have a pejorative effect on client participation and recipient
views of government as a whole. The effect of an increase of food resources can
impact a citizen’s capacity to participate in government, whereas the rules and
structure of the program affect the citizen’s perception of government. Although
Bloomberg felt that it was in the greater public interest to fingerprint recipients to
reduce fraud, his administration did not consider what the policy communicates
about recipient status, agency decision-making, and the perception of government
by affected recipients.
There is significantly less oversight in the subsidy program. The nonprofit
Environmental Working Group (EWG) has sought to increase transparency in
the program, and issued a report in 2012 showing that 23 members of Congress
or their family received in aggregate $6.2 million in subsidies between 1995 and
2011.42 SNAP recipients receive on average $1,596 annually according to USDA
Data for fiscal year 2012.43 Comparatively, the top 10 percent of subsidy recipients
16
C a r d e l l received $31,400 per year.44 The difference between the amount of SNAP benefits
received per person and the level of subsidy benefits received per farm entity,
compared against the relative scrutiny of each program, reveals differences in
how the farm bill perceives recipients of each program, and how they perceive
each other.
In addition to these implied value adjustments, a U.S. Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) report in 2012 explicitly described direct subsidy payments as inconsistent with farm bill principles of “Relevance, Targeting of Needs,
Affordability, Effectiveness, or Oversight.”45 Whereas SNAP eligibility requires
that recipient income must be below 130 percent of the poverty line, in 2011, a
congressional report indicated that from 2003 to 2009, over $316 million in farm
payments were provided to individuals with income greater than $1 million annually.46 The inclusion of agricultural subsidies to wealthy individuals alongside
food stamps to the categorically poor communicates a conflict in the definition
and application of public benefits.
Conclusion
Although the geographic bifurcation between food stamp recipients and subsidy
recipients during the 1930s and 1960s supported their legislative cohabitation,
the expansion in national SNAP participation has eliminated the need for urban legislators to support agricultural subsidies in exchange for rural legislators’
support for food stamps. Eighty years later, congressional adherence to this outdated arrangement is indicative of the bureaucratic pathos that often stymies effective public administration. The farm bill’s breadth of programs and entangled
stakeholder interests impede value-conscious and deliberative program design.
By separating supplemental nutrition policy and agricultural subsidies, recipients
and local agencies will be able to play a larger part in the design and efficacy of
the program. Although quid pro quo arrangements are common in Congress, the
farm bill reflects one of the largest and oldest arrangements and was considered
innovative at its inception, but the most innovative approach now would be to
dissolve this outdated relationship. ◗
F a r m B i l l P o l i t i c s 17 (Endnotes)
1 Agricultural Marketing Act, §§ 24-1-15, 71st Congress of the United States.
2 Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, §§ 73–10, 73rd Congress of the United States,
accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/farmbills/1933.
pdf.
3 “The Effects of Failure to Enact a New Farm Bill: Permanent Law Support For
Commodities and Lapse of Other USDA Programs,” United States Department of
Agriculture.
4 ‘‘Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008,’’ H.R. Res. 6124, 110 Congress of the
United States.
5 Joseph Stancliffe Davis, On Agricultural Policy, 1926-1938, (Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 1939), 253.
6 Citation from Section 32 of 1935 act.
7 “CSFP Eligibility Requirements and How to Apply,” USDA Food and Nutrition Service,
accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/csfp/csfp_eligibility.
htm.
8 Frederick V. Waugh, “Programs for Using Agricultural Surpluses to Reduce
Malnutrition and to Benefit Farmers,” Journal of Farm Economics Vol. 22.1, 1940, p.
324-334.
9 The Food Stamp Act of 1964, 88th Congress of the United States, accessed April 14,
2013, http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/rules/Legislation/pdfs/PL_88-525.pdf.
10 “Annual Summary of FNS Programs.” United States Department of Agriculture Food
and Nutrition Service, April 5, 2013, accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.fns.usda.
gov/pd/annual.htm.
11Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, 110th Congress of the United States.
12 “Farm Programs: Direct Payments Should Be Reconsidered,” United States
Government Accountability Office, July 2012, accessed April 14, 2013, http://gao.gov/
assets/600/592105.pdf.
13 Tom Philpott, “Fiscal Cliff Drama Produces an Awful Farm Bill Extension,” Mother
Jones, Jan. 4, 2013, accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.motherjones.com/tomphilpott/2013/01/fiscal-cliff-farm-bill.
14 “Agribusiness: Long-Term Contribution Trends,” Opensecrets Center for Responsive
Politics, accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php.
15 Joel D. Aberbach and Bert A. Rockman, “Bureaucrats and Clientele Groups: A View
from Capitol Hill,” American Journal of Political Science Vol. 22.4,1978, pp/ 818-832.
16 Murray R. Benedict, “Some Policy Problems in a Federal Farm Credit Program.”
American Journal of Agricultural Economics Vol. 16. 1, Jan. 1934, accessed April 14,
2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1230780.
17 Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, 110th Congress of the United States,
accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr2419/text.
18 “Commodity Insurance Fact Sheet,” United States Department of Agriculture, Risk
18
C a r d e l l Management Agency, Feb. 2013, accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.rma.usda.gov/
fields/mn_rso/2013/2013iaoats.pdf.
19 “Agriculture: Fairer Markets for Farmers,” World Trade Organization, accessed April
14, 2013, http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm3_e.htm.
20 “United States v. Butler - 297 U.S. 1,” Justia US Supreme Court Center, accessed April
14, 2013, http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/297/1/.
21 Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, 95th Congress of the United States.
22 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, 104th Congress of
the United States.
23 “SNAP Overview,” United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research
Service, accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutritionassistance/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-(snap).aspx#.UWr5hLWPPzw.
24Ibid.
25 Caroline Ratcliffe, Signe-Mary McKernan, and Kenneth Finegold, “The Effect of State
Food Stamp and TANF Policies on Food Stamp Program Participation,” The Urban
Institute, 2007, pp. 1-49.
26 Tim Conlan, “From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism.” Public Administration
Review, Vol. 66.5, 2006, pp. 664-76.
27 Ibid. p. 126.
28 “SNAP Regulations,” United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition
Service, accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/rules/regulations/.
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31 Ibid.
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33 “Congress Includes Awful 2008 Farm Bill Extension in Fiscal Cliff Deal,” National
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34 Michele Ver Ploeg and Katherine Ralston, “Food Stamps and Obesity: What Do We
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35Ibid.
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37 “Healthy Incentives Pilot - Basic Facts,” United States Department of Agriculture
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39 Robert A. Dahl, “The Science of Public Administration: Three Problems,” Public
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40 John Eligon, “Cuomo Seeks to End Fingerprinting for Food Stamps in N.Y.C.” New
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41 Joe Soss, “Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political
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42 Sara Sciammacco, “The Downfall of Direct Payments,” Environmental Working
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43 “Annual Summary of FNS Programs,” USDA.
44 “The United States Summary Information,” EWG Farm Subsidy Database, accessed
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45 “Farm Programs: Direct Payments Should Be Reconsidered,” US GAO.
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