Election 2024: Competing visions of how USDA funding can help rural America

As the 2024 presidential election hurdles closer, voters are clamoring for more information about what policy might look like under Democratic nominee Kamala Harris or Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

For agriculture policy, experts predict it could follow two very different paths depending on the results of the election: more tariffs and subsidies for big farmers under Trump, or climate investments and expanded crop insurance under Harris, The Daily Yonder reports.  

To know what might happen under a second Trump administration, clues can be found from his first presidency. As for a Harris administration, the question will be how much a new Democratic president would continue the policies of her predecessor, Joe Biden.

Trump's Tariffs and Subsidies

Early in his term, former President Trump withdrew from a free-trade agreement the U.S. had entered in 2016 that would have lowered trade barriers for domestic producers. Soon after, Trump invoked a series of tariffs on imports from nearly every other country in the world. Many countries retaliated by invoking their own tariffs on U.S. products.

This eventually led to a trade dispute with China, which resulted in steep tariffs on agriculture products, particularly soybeans and pork products.  

To support farmers who lost out on business from global consumers, Trump authorized $14.5 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) market facilitation program to provide payments to farmers affected by "unjustified foreign retaliatory tariffs." 

He also greenlit the use of the Commodity Credit Corporation, a credit program the USDA can use to pay farmers without requiring appropriations from Congress. 

"It's much more like an entitlement program," said Jonathan Coppess, a University of Illinois politics professor and former administrator of the Farm Service Agency at the USDA. 

"So you can sign up and be entitled to the payment, and then the appropriators just pay off the borrowing, basically pay off the credit card," he said. 

This provided a lot of flexibility for the USDA, but in combination with the market facilitation program and the payments farmers already received from programs in the 2018 farm bill, Coppess said some payments were made to the same people—many of whom operate large-scale operations that don't need the extra money. 

This is an issue that goes back much further than the Trump administration. Large-scale federal support for agriculture was first implemented during the 1930s to protect farmers from volatile markets caused by tariffs, natural disasters, or economic recessions. But in recent decades, the majority of that spending has gone to the largest, wealthiest farms. 

"They not only get a disproportionate amount of the income, they also get a disproportionate amount of the safety net," said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in a Daily Yonder interview. 

Biden's Rural Policy Expands Beyond Ag

Vilsack said the Biden administration has been trying to tackle how to funnel more federal resources to smaller farms. Millions of dollars are available through the American Rescue Plan Act to expand small farm operations and support farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture initiatives. The Inflation Reduction Act injected $19.5 billion into the USDA's conservation programs that incentivize climate-friendly farming. 

President Biden has invested in rural communities more broadly through policies like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which funds broadband infrastructure, modernized wastewater and drinking water systems, and road and bridge development, to name a few. 

The Biden administration also inherited Trump's coronavirus food assistance program, which provided $19 billion in relief to farmers and ranchers at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden administration expanded the now-defunct program in 2021. 

But Biden's time at the White House has also been defined by drawn-out farm bill negotiations, which are almost a year overdue. 

Farm Bill Headache

The farm bill goes far beyond supporting individual farmers. For example, it funds food stamps benefits and rural development like sewage and drinking water needs. The bill is reauthorized by Congress every five years, but it often takes longer to approve.

That's what happened with the 2023 farm bill. Fierce partisan debate over how much money should be spent on what programs has plagued negotiations, and nearly one year out from the expiration of the 2018 farm bill, a new five-year farm bill still has not been passed, even with proposals from both the House and Senate.  

"I do think among farm country, the fact they can't get a 2023 farm bill done shows tremendous dysfunction and unwillingness to come to the negotiation table," said Joe Maxwell, co-founder of Farm Action and former lieutenant governor of Missouri. "Both sides just get entrenched."

Maxwell said this dysfunction could add to the public's frustration with politics, especially as the 2024 presidential election gets closer. 

2025 and Beyond

Agriculture experts predict two very different realities for farm policy depending on the results of this election.

Another Trump administration would likely produce more tariffs on China. It also could provide more subsidies to the largest farming operations, according to Scott Faber, the senior vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group. 

He's concerned about what farm bill proposals from Republicans Glenn Thompson, the chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, and John Boozman, the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, would mean for small farmers. 

"The House bill, in particular, provides a roadmap for what Republicans might do if they were to control all the Congress and the White House," Faber said. The proposed bill would increase reference prices on just a few agricultural products like peanuts, rice, and cotton. This means those farmers are guaranteed payment through the USDA's Price Loss Coverage program if the market value on those products dips below the reference price. But it leaves out many other commodity farmers, especially ones with smaller operations. 

Critics worry large farm operations would double-dip in different subsidy programs if the House's farm bill proposal were enacted. "The increase in farm subsidies would be the largest in more than a generation, even though farm bankruptcies are at a 20-year low," Faber said. 

By contrast, the Democratic farm bill proposal from Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, would incorporate the climate-smart farming investments created by the Inflation Reduction Act into the new farm bill. 

It would also expand access to crop insurance, which for many farmers has been difficult to obtain because of high premium costs. Stabenow's proposal would increase federal support of farmers' premium expenses and make it more affordable to access higher insurance coverage levels. 

While Congress is the main driving force behind farm policy, the president can steer that force down certain paths.

President Biden steered Congress toward climate action and rural investments over his four years. Secretary Vilsack said he's confident Vice President Harris is aware of these steps taken by the Biden administration.

He also said Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz has replicated some of these farm policies as governor of Minnesota, which could mean they would be prioritized at the federal level if Harris and Walz are elected to the White House in November. 

"I'm confident that they understand the significance of [investing in small farmers] and the importance of it based on my current experience with them," Vilsack said.