WASHINGTON – A new Environmental Working Group analysis of its latest Farm Subsidy Database update shows the Department of Agriculture has become less transparent with disclosing federal farm subsidy payments, obscuring who has received some $3.1 billion.
Instead of the USDA releasing the names of all farm subsidy recipients in response to Freedom of Information Act requests – standard procedure for almost all of the 22 years that EWG has been tracking federal farm subsidies – the department is now omitting recipients who have operating loans from the data it shares. Rather than disclosing the subsidy recipient names, the USDA is releasing the names of their lending institutions.
“The USDA’s decision inexplicably conceals the beneficiaries of almost $3.1 billion in taxpayer dollars between 2019 and 2021,” said EWG Midwest Director Anne Schechinger, food and agricultural economist and co-author of the analysis. “This omission makes it impossible to know how many people would be getting such payments, what they’re growing and other information important for agency accountability.”
EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database tracks the names and locations of federal farm subsidy recipients and the money they have received since 1995. EWG has just added subsidy payments from 2020 and 2021, gleaned in response to its FOIA requests, to the database.
When analyzing the new data, EWG researchers found that, between 2019 and 2021, $3.08 billion – or over 6 percent of all farm subsidies – went to 1,134 financial institutions.
Farm subsidies are sent to banks instead of recipients to help pay off farmers’ operating loans. This is not novel in itself. But it is new for the USDA to give EWG the banks’ names instead of the farmers’ names in response to FOIA requests. The change occurred when the agency switched to a new reporting system in 2019, during the Trump administration.
The USDA has not given a reason for why the new system provides bank names instead of recipient names, and has denied EWG’s appeals requesting farmers’ names.
Surprisingly, the financial institution that received the most farm subsidies was the USDA itself. Almost $350 million – more than any other financial organization – went to its Farm Service Agency.
Federal farm subsidy programs are notorious for problems like elaborate farm partnerships that hide many individual recipients, and numerous loopholes that enable rich landowners, city dwellers and family members of farmers to receive huge amounts of money each year.
EWG has been investigating federal farm subsidy programs and updating its Farm Subsidy Database since 2001. Between 1995 and 2021, federal farm subsidies totaled $478 billion. Over that period, the 10 percent of farm subsidy recipients collecting the most subsidies took over 78 percent of the money, with the top 1 percent pocketing 27 percent of total subsidies.
Meanwhile, the 80 percent of recipients receiving the least amount of money – those who, by virtue of the small size of their operations, only qualify for small payments – collectively received just 9 percent of total subsidies.
“Issues with federal farm subsidy programs are very hard to fix without better transparency around who is getting all of these taxpayer dollars,” Schechinger said. “All farm subsidy recipients should be divulged to the public, like they were for many years.”
Reporting subsidies by bank name conceals who is actually benefiting from farm subsidies, undermining the USDA’s transparency and accountability. Taxpayers and lawmakers deserve to know who gets farm subsidies and what they grow.
Farm subsidy programs also undermine on-farm climate adaptation and mitigation
The huge amount of taxpayer money doled out by farm subsidy programs also does almost nothing to help farmers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to adverse weather conditions like severe drought and flooding caused or exacerbated by the climate crisis.
The USDA administers conservation initiatives like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program, which pay farmers to adopt conservation practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience.
But traditional farm subsidy programs and the federal Crop Insurance Program do not help farmers reduce their emissions or encourage adaptation – and some programs even actively discourage such actions. And farm subsidies are funded at much higher levels than the conservation programs that improve climate outcomes.
Many of these programs are funded through the farm bill, which is scheduled for renewal in 2023. Through this legislation, Congress can make farm subsidies more transparent and provide additional financial incentives for conservation practices that lower farmers’ climate footprint.
“This year’s farm bill is a historic opportunity to fix many of the issues with federal farm subsidy programs,” Schechinger said. “It’s imperative that Congress make the necessary reforms to improve farm subsidy transparency and incentivize the reduction of on-farm greenhouse gas emissions.”
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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action. Visit www.ewg.org for more information.
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