The 2014 Farm Bill: Farm Subsidies and Food Oppression
| Publication year | 2015 |
I. INTRODUCTION
The 2014 Farm Bill ushered in some significant and surprising changes. One of these was that it rendered the identity of all the recipients of farm subsidies secret. Representative Larry Combest, who is now a lobbyist for agribusiness, first introduced a secrecy provision into the bill in 2000.(fn1) The provision, however, only applied to subsidies made in the form of crop insurance.(fn2) Until 2014, the majority of subsidies were direct payments and the identity of the people who received them was public information. In fact, the Environmental Working Group's release of the list of recipients led to a series of scandals because it featured celebrities Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Carter, members of the House and Senate,(fn3) and a considerable number of billionaires, including founders of high-profile companies such as Microsoft and Charles Schwab.(fn4) The resulting outcry against the corruption represented by these payments(fn5) increased support for the elimination of direct payments. The Bill consequently replaced these payments with two new crop insurance programs, thereby extinguishing public access to the list of farm subsidy recipients.(fn6) This move was particularly disturbing in an era where transparency in the food system is commonly viewed as desirable and even necessary.(fn7)
Another dramatic aspect of the Bill was that it cut $8 billion from the food stamp program, affecting approximately 1.7 million people. What it did not do, however, is alter the allocation of agricultural subsidies that has been in place since the Bill's first incarnation in 1933. This is surprising in light of evolving medical insights into nutrition and shifting national health priorities. This resistance to change suggests that health and nutrition are not driving the Farm Bill. Instead, it appears that large agribusiness has succeeded in capturing the majority of resources allocated to farm support. Although farm subsidies comprise only 14% of the Farm Bill,(fn8) they are highly controversial because, not only do they determine which agricultural industries are likely to thrive and survive, they guide the nation's consumption patterns. The health of farmers and individuals are therefore both at stake in each Farm Bill.
Corn, wheat, and soy receive the highest percentage of farm subsidies.(fn9) Additionally, the Farm Bill provides support for the milk and dairy industries.(fn10) As a result, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the agency that administers the Bill, has a significant stake in selling these foods to consumers, often through secondary markets, such as soft drinks and other beverages sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and processed, packaged foods containing high levels of fats derived from soybeans. The USDA's investment in the success of these markets conflicts, however, with its mandate to promote health and nutrition.
The USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services publish the federal Dietary Guidelines every five years.(fn11) They advise individuals to consume several servings of fruits and vegetables daily, and to eat a diet rich in whole grains.(fn12) Nonetheless, the Farm Bill provides only minimal support for these healthy foods. Consequently, the USDA, in order to meet its mandate to support subsidized agricultural industries, primarily promotes non-nutritious foods.(fn13) The Farm Bill and the demands it makes on the USDA thus make it extremely difficult for most people to eat in accordance with the national nutritional recommendations.
The USDA's responsibility to support subsidized commodities also appears to influence policies related to the nutrition programs that the agency administers, including the Child Nutrition Program (school lunchrooms), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance to Women and Children (WIC), and the food stamp program (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP).(fn14) For example, school meals contain a significant amount of processed foods and very few fresh fruits and vegetables, despite a growing movement to introduce gardening and farming curricula into schools.(fn15) Even at public schools where children produce their own organic harvest, regulations prevent lunchrooms from feeding children the products of their labor.(fn16) Instead, public schools dispense tater tots and corn dogs.(fn17) Similarly, WIC distributes processed foods to women and children in need, including infant formula, the primary ingredient of which is one of two subsidized commodities-milk or soy.(fn18) Participants in the WIC program breastfeed at lower rates than other women.(fn19) These low breastfeeding rates are linked to a host of health problems for mothers and infants.(fn20) Additionally, SNAP allows participants to spend money on unhealthy foods that contain subsidized commodities, but not on necessary items such as toilet paper.(fn21)
Agribusinesses' influence over the Farm Bill thus appears not only to contribute to poor health outcomes in the United States generally,(fn22) but also to cause disproportionate harm to individuals that participate in federal nutrition programs. All WIC and SNAP recipients are impoverished, as they must meet low-income eligibility requirements to qualify for these programs. Also, although students across a range of incomes eat meals at school, the detrimental effects of corporate influence fall heaviest on poor children. Students who eat school-provided meals receive upto 50% of their daily calories from them.(fn23) For poor children, these calories are likely to be the day's most nutritious ones, because of a lack of access to healthy food in low-income neighborhoods. Additionally, structural factors, such as the need to work multiple jobs and limited means of transportation, prevent parents from travelling to other areas to shop or eat out. The USDA's use of government programs to increase consumption of subsidized commodities thus negatively affects low-income individuals, particularly children, while having minimal, if any, impact on people in higher income brackets.
Race, in addition to class, plays a part in the disproportionate harm to health of the USDA's policies. Racialized groups, particularly blacks, are disproportionately represented in the nutrition programs.(fn24) Low-income blacks and members of other racially marginalized communities also tend to live in neighborhoods dominated by fast food restaurants. These establishments can sell unhealthy food at low cost in great part due to farm subsidies.(fn25) Cheap prices and lack of alternatives often make fast food the only choice. Unfortunately, members of these communities experience higher rates of nutrition-related deaths and diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer.(fn26) Unhealthy diets contribute to these health disparities, alongside other factors such as inadequate recreational opportunities,(fn27) insufficient or no health insurance,(fn28) and racial disparities in treatment by health providers.(fn29)
To deconstruct the racial and socioeconomic harms of subsidized commodities, it is useful to analyze farm subsidies using the lens of food oppression theory. Food oppression theory examines how facially neutral food policy and law can physically debilitate members of marginalized and subordinated groups, creating and perpetuating racial and socioeconomic health disparities. Food oppression theory considers how corporate influence can lead to policy that prioritizes industry over health. Further, it explores how racial stereotypes and myths about personal responsibility create apathy toward health disparities, making them appear natural and irremediable, rather than products of structural inequalities that law and policy have created and thus have the potential to dismantle.
Employing a food oppression lens, I begin by providing a brief history of farm subsidies and describing how these subsidies affect health and consumption patterns. I then apply the elements of food oppression to the practice of subsidizing agricultural commodities. Next, I assess whether new aspects of the 2014 Farm Bill serve to improve health outcomes, both generally and across racial and socioeconomic lines. Finally, I briefly discuss proposals that would represent progress toward mitigating or eliminating both the general and disparate harms of subsidized commodities.
II. HISTORY AND HEALTH EFFECTS OF FARM SUBSIDIES
Congress enacted the first Farm Bill, the Agricultural Act of 1933, in response to agricultural distress brought on by the Great Depression.(fn30) Initially, the dual goals of the Act were to provide financial support to farmers and nutritious food to an ailing population.(fn31) Subsidies in the 1933 Agricultural Act went primarily to farmers of corn, wheat, soy, rice, and cotton. The selection of these particular commodities led to a racially imbalanced distribution of subsidies, with 98% of the financial support allocated in the Bill going to white farmers.(fn32) In this regard, the Farm Bills are part of a larger pattern of discrimination against black and Latino farmers that has persisted from 1933 to the present.(fn33)
After World War II, hunger and malnutrition, especially among children, were the most salient public health issues.(fn34) Accordingly, Farm Bills following...
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