Farm Bill Case Study

Agricultural subsidies is a very complex and controversial economic topic today. It will continue to be a hot topic as government continues it. It is largely debated in the United States as well as in other countries. The reason it is so largely debated is because it literally have an effect on the entire world market. Not to mention that the farm has been booming the last 5 to 10 years. This topic also tends to draw strong opinions in our area in particular due to the large agricultural community in our region. However, even within different states there are many supporters as well as opponents to these government subsidies.

Although a 2002 agriculture law superseded many parts of FAIRA, acreage was still increased because of the growing demand for corn in animal feed, the need for corn in ethanol manufacturing, and the increased possibility to make food with corn byproducts. These seem to be good and fair reasons to focus our efforts on increasing output, however, the same issue arises: the more corn that is made, the less stable a livelihood farming becomes, regardless of the subsidies that the federal government provides.

In the United States of America, there is enough food in this country that the total amount of agricultural exports is enough to feed everyone twice over (Dorsch, 2013). The problem is that even though there is so much food in this country millions of people require assistance to purchase the food and feed their families. Dating back almost 100 years, the now called Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) has evolved to keep up with the changing needs of the Country. In 1933 SNAP was built into Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). The AAA was put into law during the great depression. The purpose of the law was to help farmers deal with the excess supply of crops by having the government subsidize the cost. The government would also distribute these crops to relief agencies and local communities (The History of SNAP). In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Food Stamp Act. With this legislation enacted it was now required to purchase stamps. These stamps also had bonus amounts that were determined by income level. In the 90’s and early 2000s major changes were done to SNAP. The electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card was

This article written in the Texas Agriculture, a magazine published by the Texas Farm Bureau, is about all the factors impacting farmers that effect their income. Over the past couple years, a combination of things has caused the average Texas farmers income to drop. The primary audience for this article is the farmers in Texas as they are experiencing these issues first hand. The secondary audience would be consumers who have noticed price fluctuations in products at the store and are wondering the reason.

A discourse community follows Swales’ six characteristics: members share common goals, has a form of communication, a form of feedback, genres, a specific lexis, and has a level of expertise all within the group (Swales 25). I believe the Future Farmers of America is a great candidate for this topic for that it falls in to the categories listed by Swales. The start of Future Farmers of America came in 1900s in the state of Virginia. Adolescent to teenage males were not interested in farming and did not want to take over the family farms. This led to a homegrown farmer becoming the supervisor of Agriculture Education and set out to fix this problem, Walter Newman. With the help of Edmund C, Magill, Harry W. Sanders and the most influential Henry

The Farm Bill only faced minor changes up until 1996, when a Republican Congress in favor of deregulating the industry redrafted the legislation to allow for more free market engagements. Since then, the debate over deregulating and unsubsidizing farmers has grown immensely.

“Farming is risky, you’re at the mercy of the weather and market prices. Insurance helps manage the risk, it takes that factor out of it,” Becton said. “You’re not going to get rich collecting your crop insurance, but you’ll be able to stay in business.”

The agricultural industry: the farms, plants, animals, and farmers, have supported this great country for so long, but lately we have turned our backs on it. Today, we live in a materialistic society, people wanting more and better items, not settling for products that will accomplish the same job.From looking at the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store, we see the bruised or smaller ones left, while the big and brightly colored ones are selected first. In our society today, changes are constantly being made to help expand and evolve the agricultural industry, but it has yet been able to do so. To this day farmers across this nation have not been completely successful in providing for the people who make up this country. In the stores

Today, nearly 57 million Americans receive benefits from nutrition assistance programs such as SNAP and WIC. The 47.6 million Americans that are part of SNAP are currently able to purchase food staples as well as prepackaged foods. The 9 million WIC beneficiaries however, are limited to the types of products they can purchase to only food staples. There is a new bill being constructed for the approval or denial of Congress that will alter the current US Farm Bill. This new bill will restrict the purchases of SNAP beneficiaries to food staples only in addition to adding white potatoes to the list of foods WIC recipients can purchase. These changes will have an impact on the price and quantity of food markets such as: the rice, sugar, and

America, the rules and regulations around the H-2A program, or lack thereof, have profound economic and social impact on the U.S. agricultural labor force as a whole.

If Congress proceeds with legislative revision to SNAP and WIC will lead to economic change in the agricultural production sector in the U.S. economy. Legislative changes like SNAP recipients no longer being able to purchase items like soft drinks and prepackaged food would be substituted for food staples like rice and wheat. While the WIC program would be adding white potatoes to the list of healthier foods options. Because of these changes in SNAP Legislation will allow rice farmers to be better off, sugar farmers to be worst off, wheat farmers to be better off, and white potatoes farmers to be worst off because increased demand for food staples and decrease in demand in sugary products since they are no longer eligible

As of March of 2016, Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois has proposed defunding of agricultural classes in his state. Think about this, the governor of a state where one in four jobs in Illinois are directly related to agriculture wants to give a grand total of zero dollars to the Future Farmers of America along with ag classes in general. This is the reason that schools not only should offer agriculture related classes, but in order to graduate from high school every student should at least take one class of ag. At the end of the day all people must know where the nation’s food comes from and how it gets from the pasture to the store.

To pursue effective and long-term change, the current system needs to include a legal structure for environmental conservation. Every five to seven years, federal legislation sets the general direction of agricultural policy (American Farmland Trust [AFT], 2012a). The U.S. Farm Bill of 2008 expires on October 1,

The Agriculture sector has changed monumentally over the past century in response to vast economic change and technological advancements. Farm subsidies are various forms of payments from the federal government put in place in an effort to stabilize prices, keep farmers in business, and ensure quality of crops. The federal government currently pays $20 billion in cash each year to US farmers and spent an estimated $250 billion between 1995-2005. Presently, a new farm bill is passed every five years

Coxe has studied the sector for more than 35 years as a strategist for BMO Financial Group. He says it didn’t have to come to this. “We’ve got a situation where there has been no incentive to allocate significant new capital to agriculture or to develop new technologies to dramatically expand crop output.”