An Overview of the Modern Farm Bill
| Author | Mary Jane Angelo and Joanna Reilly-Brown |
| Pages | 13-33 |
Page 13
Chapter 2
An Overview of the Modern Farm Bill
Mar y Jane Angelo and Joanna Reilly-Brown
In the United States, an array of federal laws governs agricultural and food issues, but the most comprehensive
collection of agricultural and food policy legislation is found in what is commonly referred to as the “farm
bill.” e farm bill covers a wide range of federal food and farming programs and provisions under the purview
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). e U.S. Congress passes a new omnibus farm bill roughly every
ve years, and the new legislation typically amends, reauthorizes, or repeals provisions of previous farm bills.1
e farm bill includes myriad programs, ranging from school lunches to biofuels. e most relevant
programs related to the impacts of agriculture on the environment, however, are ones providing subsidies to
farmers, which tend to encourage industrializ ed farming practices that are environmentally harmfu l, and
those providing nancial incentives for certain conser vation practices.2 ese programs signicantly inu-
ence what crops farmers choose to grow, how they grow them, and what environmental impacts result from
these decisions.3 Due to its constantly evolving, omnibus nature, the farm bill both stimulates cooperation
between often-conicting interest groups and creates intense competition among groups with diering
priorities for farm bill programs and between producers of dierent commodities.4
Although the basic structure of the farm bill has remained intact over the past 70-plus years, several sig-
nicant changes have been made, numerous programs have been added, and the breadth of issues covered
by the farm bill has expa nded to encompass emerging agricultural interests such as conservation, organic
production, and bioenergy.5
Nevertheless, the largest components of farm bill policy continue to be the price support and income
support programs that encourage large-scale monoculture industrialized agricultural practices.6 Beginning
with the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the United States has had a long history of subsidizing and
regulating its agricultural sector. A product of the New Deal era, the 1933 legislation aimed to control crop
prices by decreasing supply, a feat achieved by paying farmers to produce less.7 e series of farm bills that
followed in the subsequent seven decades—15 pieces of legislation in all—evolved into the country’s com-
prehensive agricultural policy, tackling a variety of goals, from price support to conservation.8
e most recent farm bill, enacted in 2008, contains a labyrinth of complex, piecemeal, and often con-
tradictory agricultura l, energy, and conservation subsidy programs with a price tag of almost $284 billion.9
1. R J, C. R S., W I “F B”, 1 (2008), available at http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/
RS22131.pdf [hereinafter CRS, W I F B].
2. John H. Davidson, e Federal Farm Bill and e Environment, 18-S N. R E’ 3, 37 (2003); Jason J. Czarnezki, Food, Law
& e Environment: Informational and Structural Changes for a Sustainable Food System, 31 U E. L. R. 263, 266 (2011); William S.
Eubanks II, A Rotten System: Subsidizing Environmental Degradation and Poor Public Health With Our Nation’s Tax Dollars, 28 S. E.
L.J. 213, 251-73 (2009).
3. Julie Foster, Subsidizing Fat: How e 2012 Farm Bill Can Address America’s Obesity Epidemic, 160 U. P. L. R. 235, 255 (2011).
4. CRS, W I T F B, supra note 1, at 4.
5. Id. at 1.
6. Eubanks, supra note 2.
7. Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, Pub. L. No. 73-10, §8(1), 48 Stat. 31, 34 (1933).
8. See CRS, W I T F B, supra note 1 (discussing the variety of programs encompassed within the farm bill).
9. R J ., C. R S., T 2008 F B: M P L A (2008), 1, 8, available
at http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL34696.pdf [hereinafter CRS, T 2008 F B].
Portions of this chapter have been adapted from, with permission, Mary Jane Angelo, Corn, Carbon, and Conservation: Rethinking U.S. Agricultural
Policy in a Changing Global Environment, 17 G. M L. R. 593 (2010).
Page 14 Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Law
Commodity subsidies under the 2008 farm bill include a large number of complex programs including
price support programs and income support programs. While Congress has historically defended these
farm support programs as necessary to ensure that the United States has access to an aordable, safe food
supply,10 such programs have also been criticized as being ineective, costly, international-trade distorting,
and environmentally destructive due to their encoura gement of large-scale industrial agriculture.11
is chapter provides an overview of the policies, subsidies, and trends associated with the current farm
bill, discusses the provisions and programs t hat ostensibly impact the natu ral environment, and identies
perceived gaps or weaknesses within its programs that have the ability to produce harmful environmental
consequences. Proposals for environmentally benecia l changes that could be made to future farm bills
are a lso discussed, as well as challenges (budgetary and otherwise) to implementing those changes. e
chapter concludes with a discussion of proposed changes to the fa rm bill currently being debated, which
are primarily focused on reducing subsidies in response to the ongoing government budgetary problems.
A. The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008: Key Provisions and
Programs Impacting the Environment
e most recent omnibus farm bill is the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008.12 e Act reau-
thorized and makes sma ll change s to programs carried through from previou s fa rm bil ls.13 Some new
programs were added, but the basic struct ure of prev ious farm bills wa s maintained.14 e Ac t contain s
15 titles providi ng support for commodit y price a nd income supports, conservation, trade, energy, hor-
ticulture a nd organic agricultu re, and crop insurance, among other prog rams.15 e 2008 bill added
ve titles that ha d not been in t he 2002 farm bil l, which contain provisions to address horticulture ,
livestock, and organic products issues (including mandatory funding to support organic production
and block grants for specia lty crops), com modity futures, crop insura nce and disaster assistance, and
assorted tax a nd trade provisions.16
Many provisions in the 2008 farm bill have the ability to benecially or adversely inuence, both
directly and indirectly, the impacts of agriculture on the environment. For example, the various subsidy
programs for large-scale commodity production incentivize farming practices that maximize production
often at the expense of natural resource preservation, while the conservation subsidy programs are designed
to protect natural resources by encouraging farmers to set aside sensitive lands or participate in voluntary
working lands programs.
1. Title I: Commodities
ree permanent laws, as a mended, give USDA the authority to operate farm commodity programs: the
Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938,17 the Agricultural Act of 1949,18 and the Commodity Credit Corpo-
ration (CCC) Charter Act of 1948.19 ese laws are typical ly amended through the omnibus fa rm bills in
response to market or budgetary concerns. Every fa rm bill has an expiration date, and, if Congress fails to
enact a new farm bill upon expiration of an old one, the commodities programs revert to t he permanent
laws mentioned above.20 It is therefore highly desirable for Congress to enact a new farm bill when an old
one expires because the permanent laws support eligible commodities at rates signicantly higher than
10. CRS, W I T F B, supra note 1, at 1.
11. William S. Eubanks II, e Sustainable Farm Bill: A Proposal for Permanent Environmental Change, 39 ELR 10493, 10504 (May 2009).
12. Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-246, 122 Stat. 923 (2008).
13. CRS, T 2008 F B, supra note 9, at 5.
14. Id. at 7.
15. Id. at 6.
16. See id. (summarizing the 15 titles contained in the 2008 farm bill).
17. Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, Pub. L. No. 75-430, 52 Stat. 31.
18. Agricultural Act of 1949, 7 U.S.C. §1431.
19. Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act of 1948, 15 U.S.C. §714.
20. J M, C. R S., F C P 2008 F B, 3 (2008), available at http://www.nationala-
glawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL34594.pdf [hereinafter CRS, F C P].
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