Plowing Ground in Washington: The Political Economy of U.S. Agriculture.

• Author: Rucker, Randal R.

In Plowing Ground, Del Gardner presents an extensive, well-reasoned critique of U.S. agriculture programs that is accessible to a wide range of potential readers. He writes primarily for educated laypersons, seeking to give them a better understanding of agricultural policy -- how programs work, the effects of different programs and policy tools, and the functioning of the political process through which policy is enacted. He argues that

farm policy as it exists today (1) distorts the economy and

produces significant efficiency loss that reduces average standards of

living, (2) massively redistributes income and wealth from

taxpayers and consumers to farmers, primarily landowners, who are now

richer than average Americans, and (3) degrades and despoils the

natural and physical environment in significant ways. (p. xi)

Gardner devotes a considerable portion of the book to explaining why such negative-sum policies are enacted and why they have persisted so long.

Part 1 of Plowing Ground is composed of five chapters. The first discusses the political climate surrounding the 1985 farm bill and provides a brief history of U.S. agricultural programs. Gardner indicates that although he and other students of agricultural policy expected implementation of major changes in the 1985 farm bill, the Food Security Act of 1985 for the most part simply extended earlier agricultural programs. He uses the inconsistencies between expectations and realizations in 1985 to motivate his inquiry into the causes and effects of agricultural policies. In chapters 2 and 3 the concepts of efficiency and equity are introduced, the role played by prices in a market economy is discussed, and some impacts of selected agricultural policies are examined. Issues receiving particular attention include the efficiency effects of trade barriers, the validity of arguments that price supports and marketing orders increase stability, and the impacts of agricultural policies on input usage. Chapter 4 provides a case study of the credit policies of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA). Gardner demonstrates the extremes to which these policies go to keep farmers from failing, and he makes a convincing case for their overall inefficiency. Chapter 5 pertains to the distribution of agricultural support payments. Here Gardner presents data demonstrating that the bulk of these payments goes to large, wealthy farmers rather than small, low-income family farmers.

In the four chapters of part...