Project 2025 on Agriculture: Worsening Disastrous Conservative Farm Policies.pdf

This slide show examines Project 2025's recommendations for USDA farm programs, from chapter 10, (The Department of Agriculture,) in the Heritage Foundation's book Mandate for Leadership. I look at the recommendations in a larger historical, sociological, economic and political context. It provides data in support of my detailed paper, "Project 2025 on Agriculture: Another Conservative Nail in the Farmer’s Coffin," which can be found under my profile at ResearchGate, at Daily Kos: Iowa Farm Activist, and at this link. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UbX-dQxKJla0sUUvwVqrKnBevBP0kYeB?usp=share_link

1. Brad Wilson, July 2024 !
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UbX-dQxKJla0sUUvwVqrKnBevBP0kYeB?usp=share_link !

Project 2025 on Agriculture
Worsening Disastrous Conservative Farm Policies

2. “Project 2025 on Agriculture
Another Conservative Nail in the Farmers Coffin”
✤This slide show is based upon Brad Wilson’s background paper.!
✤This slide show is a supplement to Brad Wilson’s detailed analysis
into Project 2025’s chapter on USDA, especially regarding farm
programs. The focus here is on economic data and impacts.!
✤Brad’s paper looks at the Project 2025 chapter on USDA in its larger
historical, sociological, economic and political context.!
✤Brad’s basic conclusion is that the conservative, authoritarian assault
on U.S. farmers has mostly already happened, over the previous
seven decades. Project 2025 then makes USDA farm programs even
worse for farmers, and for the United States as a whole.

3. WHAT Were the Main
New Deal Farm Programs
✤Against Chronic Market Failure and Cheap Prices:!
✤Minimum Farm Price Floors, backed up by!
✤Supply Reductions, as needed to balance supply and
demand.!
✤Against Occasional Price Spikes from Shortages:!
✤Maximum Price Ceilings, to trigger!
✤the release of stored Reserve Supplies onto the market.

4. It’s called a “Lack of Price Responsiveness.”
WHY Were Farm Programs Needed?
‘Free’ Farm Markets Chronically Fail, on Both Supply & Demand Sides

5. Free Markets Fail for Agriculture
on Both Supply & Demand Sides
✤Farms are only so big, so farmers don’t change how much they plant,
(supply,) when prices rise or fall.!
✤Farmers make planting decisions far ahead of when they sell what they
grow, so it’s irrational to change acreages very much in response to
anticipated prices.!
✤Consumer stomachs are only so big, so they don’t change how much they
eat, (demand,) very much based upon farm prices, and industry is similar.!
✤Changes in grain prices have tiny impacts on the price of food, such as a
very few pennies in a loaf of bread of box of cereal. !
✤Project 2025 ignores all of this.

6. Big agribusinesses can & do
manage supply, even
extremely (top left), but
farmers are too small (top
left) & suffer under free
markets!
Project 2025 is basically
Hooverism for farms.

7. Project 2025 opposes this for farmers, calls for ended the remaining, much reduced programs for sugar farmers.
All Large Industrial Companies Manage Supply
Farmers are too small to manage supply. New Deal Market Management Fixed This!

8. Agribusiness firms paid farmers much more fairly, at “living wage” levels.
Farm Programs Fixed Market Failure
115% increase, 1942-52, compared to averages from 1920-32.

9. Project 2025 calls for ending these.
Market Order Programs Helped Fruits & Vegetables
These crops are perishable, not very storable, so different programs were used.

10. Farm programs started slowly during the Great Depression.
Net Farm Income Increased!
The parity farm programs were very successful.

11. Debt Decreased dramatically!
Democratic New Deal Farm Programs saved farmers from the Great Depression.

12. Return on Equity Rose
Return on Farm Equity became more comparable to that of the agribusiness sector.

13. A revolving fund was used when supply reductions were inadequate on a given year, to buy up farm products for later
sale, such as after they more adequately reduced supply the next year, raised prices, and sold inventory for a profit.
New Deal Programs Made Money for USDA
By effectively managing supply and price, instead of subsidies, Parity programs were profitable.

14. Conservatives Reduced the programs, 1953-95, then ended them, hurting farmers.
Farmers received “100% of parity”
Early Farm Programs: 1933-41; Parity years 1942-52; followed by decline.

15. Starting with Eisenhower, Price Floors were lowered, more and more, then ended.!
Project 2025 calls for ending the last of these, for sugar beets & sugarcane.
Reduced, Ended Market Management
Minimum farm price floors were set at 85% or 90% of parity during the parity years.

16. He didn’t adequately reduce supply, as seen on the next slide. Prices fell below price floors due to this mismanagement.
Eisenhower: Prices Fell Below Price Floors!
Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, made the programs look bad.

17. The Eisenhower administration was especially bad at managing the programs.
Carryover of Supply was Low
Then Conservative Reductions in Programs created over-supply.

18. Oversupply increased under Eisenhower, Reagan, & Ford; declined under Kennedy/Johnson and Carter.!
There was a huge Soviet grain sale under Nixon, subsidizing the Soviets with cheap grain.
Republicans have Mismanaged Farm Programs
Not liking Supply Management, Republicans have allowed Oversupply to drive down Farm Prices

19. Allowing oversupply led to government purchases, later sold at lower prices, as price floors were reduced.!
With adequate supply reductions, government purchases are not needed.
Republican Mismanagement Costs!
By failing to adequately manage supply, costs skyrocketed under Eisenhower.

20. Fertilizer sellers oppose acreage reductions. They want farmers to use maximum fertilizer.!
They want lots of high input crops, not low input crops like pastures, hay and small grains.
Grain Buyers Oppose Farmer Supply Management
Grain Buyers practice it, but oppose it for farmers, & benefit from cheap grain prices.

21. Authoritarian corporate reports like this one called for severely reducing farm programs.
A Project 2025-Style Assault on Farmers
From the Committee on Economic Development: one of many conservative reports.

22. CED 1962
Authoritarian
Equivalency to
Project 2025
But CED proposed
a better farm program.

23. Top: Republican Plan. Bottom: Results. Price Floors were lowered a lot! Subsidy costs grew a lot! Farmers got less!!
Conservatives increasingly turned farm policy into an inadequate welfare program.
85 Farm Bill: Republicans Betrayed Farmers
Reagan increasingly subsidized the Soviet “Evil Empire” with below cost grain.

24. Meanwhile, the profitability, (return on Equity,) of giant grain buyers was very high!
Reagan: Cheap Farm Prices for Agribusiness
During the 1980s farm crisis, Corn Belt Returns on Equity were way below zero!

25. Democrats proposed to restore New Deal-style market management to raise Net Farm Income.
Study: Democratic Proposal Better for Farms!
The 85 Farm Bill, the Republican response to the Farm Crisis, lowered Net Farm Income.

26. FAPRI: Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute, 2-87 study.
Study: Republican Farm Bill Was Expensive!
The Democratic Alternative, with Price Floors & No Subsidies, was Much Cheaper.

27. FAPRI: Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute, 2-87 study. With the Republican approach, U.S. taxpayers pay
farm subsidies on crops for domestic use and for foreign sales. There are no subsidies in the Democratic approach.
Export Income: Democrats Better!
Though the Democratic approach reduced supply & export quantities, income went up!

28. The Democratic New Deal update would have raised farm prices above full costs, for profits, not losses, on exports.!
This very bad Republican 85 Farm Bill is, nevertheless, better than what Project 2025 proposes.
Republican Farm Bill Subsidized Foreigners
Farmers “paid” the subsidy, domestic & foreign, via below cost farm prices, result of the 85 Farm Bill.

29. 01
Project 2025 Recommendations
for USDA Farm Programs

30. NO discussion of whether U.S. sugar prices are high or low. Implied: They’re high.
Rationale: It makes Sugar More Expensive
Sugarcane and Sugar Beet Price Floor Programs Raise U.S. Prices Above World Prices.

31. Part of the “full cost” is “unpaid labor,” so farmers received an income on each of these years, but that left
nothing as a return on their investments in land, machinery, facilities for growing sugar beets, in this example.
Sugar Beet Prices: Below Full Costs
Data ended after 2007.

32. Price Floor levels, though higher than world price levels, have been far too low! !
USDA Data: 1909-2022, adjusted for inflation in 2023 dollars.
Sugar Beets: Repeated Record Low Prices
The Project 2025 report claimed that sugar prices were at record highs!

33. The prices sugar processors charged increased. Farm prices fell. The gap between the two doubled.!
Like other crops, Price Floors were reduced under increasingly conservative programs.
Sugar Beets: Down, Down Down!
Project 2025 claimed that refined sugar prices were high. But farm prices were low

34. Again, processors charged higher prices as they paid farmers lower and lower prices.
Sugarcane: Down, Down Down!
Though no cost data is available, the pattern is closely parallel to Sugar Beets.

35. Project 2025 ignores the economic facts and calls for forcing farmers to subsidize consumers even more.
Sugarcane: Repeated Record Low Prices
After years of conservative reductions, Sugarcane prices hit record lows, repeatedly.

36. See also: Brad Wilson, "Don’t Misunderstand Higher Priced Sugar," ZSpace: Brad Wilson, 8/3/14, !
https://znetwork.org/zblogs/dont-misunderstand-higher-priced-sugar/.
You can read more about the sugar issue here.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/6/3/981738/-Sugar-and-Subsidies-Policy-Myths-Relativism-and-Contradictions

37. These important programs are rarely discussed by most farm bill advocates today.
Project 2025 Against Fruits & Vegetables
The Farm Bill has provided Market Order programs for Fruits and Vegetables.

38. For more information see my slide show:!
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/subsidized-crops-vs-vegetables-pt-i/239258118.
Vegetable Prices: Down, Down, Down!
Project 2025 wants to lower them even more!

39. For more information see my slide show of fruit price data: https://www.slideshare.net/
slideshow/subsidized-crops-vs-fruits-pt-2/239258054.
Fruit Prices: Down, Down, Down!
Project 2025 gives none of the context related to their claims.

40. Project 2025 would have farmers plant row crops on highly erodible hills and near to streams.!
this would also lower farm prices, by increasing the quantity of ending stocks each year.
End the Conservation Reserve Program?
This program has helped reduce soil erosion and agricultural pollution.

41. Conservation Compliance Reduces Soil Erosion
These requirements protect highly erodible land.

42. https://familyfarmjustice.me/2022/07/31/you-cant-fix-sustainability-without-justice/
Conservative Policy Damages the Environment
This paper summarizes my extensive data study of how cheap prices block sustainability.

43. This was an enormous, very damaging, structural change to U.S. agriculture.!
This further reduced farm income, as farmers lost value-added livestock & poultry.
Cheap Grain Subsidized CAFOs
Decade by decade farms lost the diversity of livestock, as grain prices fell more and more.

44. This was a major structural change. Farms, towns, and whole regions lost the infrastructure for diversity.
Without Livestock Farms Lost Sustainability
Farms lost sustainable livestock crops, pasture, hay, and small grain nurse crops.

45. Cheaper and cheaper prices led to less labor availability for diverse farming, and more off-farm capital.
Surviving Farmers Had Off Farm Jobs
This dramatic structural change is tied to the loss of diversity and sustainability.

46. Surviving farmers relied increasingly on using farm losses as tax write-offs for off-farm income.
Farm Share of Income Declined!
Close to 50% in the early 1960s, the farm share dropped to just 20% or 10% or less.

47. Republicans chose to have farmers subsidize agribusiness buyers. Farms became more dependent upon input sellers.
Decline of Farming as Primary Occupation!
This is what increasingly Republican farm policy did to farming in the U.S.

48. https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/presentations
See the Full Data Here.
Part 1: Livestock and Crops: Environmental Impacts. Part 2: Farmer Impacts.

49. Supply management is needed in reform.
Project 2025 Cuts Farm Subsidies
Restoring New Deal Price Floors is Reform. Cutting Farm Subsidies is NOT Reform.

50. The anti-farmer conservatism that has devastated the rural economy and environment
must not be normalized. https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/presentations
Case Against Bi-Partisan Farm Subsidy Bills:
They Normalize Conservative Authoritarianism
Elimination of Democratic New Deal Farm Programs is normalized.

51. Left-Right Coalitions:
FOR Subsidy Reforms
✤When the Left has joined the Right on farm policy,
the result has been the normalization of
conservatism.!
✤“Subsidy Reforms” lacking Price Floors maintain
the “need” for subsidies. True reforms restore New
Deal style market management, to end the massive
subsidization of agribusiness by farmers, and end
the need for farm subsidies.

52. Examples of Left-Right Support for
Conservative Normalization
✤The Green Scissors Campaign: “Cutting Wasteful and Environmentally
Harmful Spending.” Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense,
Public Citizen, The Heartland Institute.!
✤The Left-Right Coalition: Environmental Working Group, Taxpayers for
Common Sense, Bread for the World, Club of Growth, Environmental
Defense, The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, and others.!
✤Many other progressive groups have also ignored Democratic New Deal
style price floors and supply management, calling only for subsidy
reforms. This too normalizes authoritarian approaches like the CED’s “An
Adaptive Program for Agriculture,” and Project 2025’s “Mandate for
Leadership,” chapter 10 on farm programs.

53. Here again Project 2025 shows no understanding of the economic context behind farm programs, including subsidies.
Project 2025 Ends Most Farm Subsidies
Without Restoring Price Floors
Subsidies are essential if the goal is for farms to lose money on domestic and export sales.

54. Subsidies failed to fairly compensate farmers for losing money on sales to highly profitable agribusinesses.
Subsidies: A Poor Substitute!
Project 2025 calls for further reductions in farm subsidies.

55. For Further Explanation: slide show: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-case-against-bipartisan-farm-bills/
254542497.
Poorly Designed, ARC is Better than Hooverism.
Congress forced farmers to gamble between PLC and ARC. ARC was chosen, then it failed.

56. ✤Conservatives spun ARC
subsidies as “risk
management.” It was irrational.!
✤Most farmers got no subsidies
in 2017 and 2018, (gray areas on
maps below,) as farm prices
crashed (upper right).

57. See next slides, and for more information see:!
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-case-against-bipartisan-farm-bills/254542497.
Conservative Spin:
Call Subsidies “Risk Management.”
Project 2025 Keeps the Most Irrational Subsidies
No farmer could afford insurance for chronic market failure, so farmer premiums are
subsidized and also insurance companies.

58. Crop Revenue Insurance
Brad Wilson, “PRIMER: Revenue Insurance in the 2018 Farm Bill,” Zspace: Brad Wilson, 5/11/12, with revisions,
https://zcomm.org/zblogs/primer-revenue-insurance-in-the-2012-farm-bill-by-brad-wilson/.
✤Crop Revenue Insurance pays an insurance indemnity if farm prices/incomes are low. !
✤Advantage: these subsidies can be spun as “risk management,” a standard business
practice. All businesses need insurance. It sounds rational.!
✤Problem: it’s irrational. Market Prices were below full costs 25/26 years, 1981-2006, as
shown on the next slide. No insurance company would insure against that. No
farmer could afford it if they did. !
✤Congress gave very low Price floors 1981-1995, then no Price Floors. No company
would insure against that, no farmer could afford it if they did.!
✤Republican solution: To achieve participation in support of the “risk management”
spin, pay insurance companies a subsidy to get them to offer Revenue Insurance,
AND pay farmers a premium subsidy to get them to buy it.

59. In contrast, damage from hail or wind would occur on only a very few of these years. PROJECT 2025
SUPPORTS ONLY THE MOST IRRATIONAL OF ALL farm subsidies.
Below Cost Market Prices: 8 Crops
What Insurance Company would sell insurance for the red years and crops shown above?

60. Project 2025: Subsidize Corporations
Unlike insurance for hail and wind damage, farm revenue was low for a quarter century.!
No insurance company would sell crop REVENUE insurance. It’s an absurd idea.

61. Project 2025 calls for reducing Premium Subsidies for Farmers. Blue Line!
Farmers have had much lower returns on Equity than Insurance Companies.
Project 2025 Ignores the Red Line
Project 2025 ignores & maintains full subsidies for profitable Insurance Companies.

62. Project 2025 Criticizes Subsidies to:
Corn, Wheat, Cotton, Soybeans, & Rice
✤As I’ve shown above, these crops, plus their
subsidies, have fared worse than Fruits and
Vegetables, (summarized on the net slide).!
✤See my longer paper, “Project 2025 on Agriculture:
Another Conservative Nail in the Farmer’s Coffin,”
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UbX-
dQxKJla0sUUvwVqrKnBevBP0kYeB?
usp=share_link.

63. Each of the 45 major fruits and vegetables fared better than each of the 5,
(corn, wheat, cotton, rice, soybeans). All declined a lot!
5 crops + Subsidies: Worse than Fruits/Vegetables
Includes subsidies on top of market prices only for the five crops in blue.

64. Th
See my extensive data analysis
https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/presentations

65. xxx
Census Data: Low Income for Cash Grains
Project 2025 does not give the needed economic data with regard to their claims.

66. 44 year average, USDA-Economic Research Service.!
http://ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-income-and-wealth-statistics/data-files-us-and-state-level-farm-income-and-wealth-statistics.aspx
Fruit & Vegetable States: More Profit
Corn Belt: lower profit, followed by North and South Plains.

67. Gov. Payments: 1992 Census of Ag.
This shows data on a per acre basis.

68. This shows the irrationality of conservative ideology for agriculture.
Project 2025: Free Markets, Free Trade
Lowering, Ending Price Floors Toward Free Trade: Subsidizing Foreigners

69. Previous Wheat: Here Corn Trade
Conservative Free Trade Agreements have been bad for agriculture & the U.S. Economy.

70. xxx
Lower Net Farm Income in the South
Conservative farm policies devastated the South, especially Black farmers.

71. Th
Black Farmers Support Price Floor Programs
Black farmers need restoration of Democratic farm programs.

72. Almost all black farmers who survived to 1950 were lost by 1990.
Black & White Owners Increased With Parity
Both were devastated by decades of increasing conservatism after 1953.

73. NonWhite Wealth Increased With Parity
Increasing conservatism in farm programs after 1953 devastated black farm wealth.

74. Project 2025 is based upon the false ideology that free markets work for agriculture.
97% of Black Farms Were Lost, 1950-97
61% of white farms in the South were lost as conservatism increased in farm programs.