by TOPEKA – Kansas Country Center policy analyst Paul Johnson said the federal farm bill put about two-thirds of crop subsidies into livestock feed grains despite the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recommendation that half of the human diet be part of fruits and vegetables.
Johnson said too many politicians were satisfied with the government’s prescription for stabilizing the agricultural economy and showed little interest in reform legislation that matches the USDA’s farm program strategies with dietary recommendations.
“It has health implications,” said Johnson, an organic market gardener. “Less than 1% of federal farm bill subsidies are for healthier primary food sources.”
Congress was expected to rewrite the five-year law that took effect in 2018, but conflict has marred the House and Senate’s work on a bipartisan compromise. Federal lawmakers, including President Joe Biden, agreed to a one-year extension of the farm bill that earmarked $430 billion for food and agriculture purposes from 2019 to 2023.
About 80 cents of every $1 of farm bill spending goes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, and much of the rest went to benefit farmers growing wheat, corn, soybeans and soy. A fraction was reserved for specialty crops which included fruit from apples to strawberries, vegetables such as artichokes and watermelon and tree nuts including almonds and walnuts.
Johnson said only 7% of Kansas farmers were under the age of 35 and the average age was nearly 60. He said Kansans should expect a strong generational shift in who farms in the state. during the next two decades.
“We need a whole new generation of farmers to get a better, healthier food system in Kansas,” he said. “The Department of Commerce and the Department of Agriculture need a Kansas food farm plan. We need a robust debate. In this state … the Kansas Legislature doesn’t seem to care. We need to get it into the congressional campaigns and really talk about the future of farming in Kansas.”
Kansas Farmers Union executive director Nick Levendofsky, who also appeared on the Kansas Reflector podcast with Johnson to talk about the farm bill, said updates to the federal law in 2024 should recognize broader agricultural interests.
National policy should emphasize making food for US consumers affordable, accessible and healthy, he said.
“Kansas used to be one of those states that grew a lot of produce. We were growing grapes. We were growing potatoes and we were growing watermelon. There was a lot of diversity at one time,” said Levendofsky, part of a family farm operation near Belleville. “We could still do this. It’s just that we choose not to and because the system allows these other crops to be produced instead.”
In any given year, Kansas received $1 billion to $1.2 billion for farm programs and $400 million to $500 million for food stamps. The federal funding invested in Kansas was so great that farmers concentrated on fewer crops.
Johnson said Congress could adjust the farm bill to achieve more equity in distributing taxpayer funding. He said there were about 58,500 farms in Kansas, but 2,900 accounted for three-quarters of the state’s farm sales in 2017.
In fact, he said, 88% of the roughly $1 billion in federal farm payments distributed across Kansas over the past 20 years went to 20% of the state’s farms.
“So, only 12% of those farm payments were left for the rest, you know, 80% of the farms,” Johnson said.
Levendofsky said Congress should fully fund conservative programs authorized in the farm bill to get as much participation as possible. In 2020, only 18% of eligible Conservation Stewardship Program applicants in Kansas received funding to develop whole-farm conservation and soil improvement programs.
There is interest in drafting legislation requiring farmers who benefit from subsidized crop insurance to adopt land use practices that are acceptable to environmentalists, Levendofsky said.
Guidelines may include common practices such as no-till cultivation, crop rotation, managed pasture, planting cover crops to conserve moisture or terracing to prevent erosion. Sustainable farming practices could reduce the erosion in streams, rivers and reservoirs that would threaten the drinking water supply.
Levendofsky said the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which made investments in clean energy and climate action, included appropriations for farm conservation.
“Those programs are in place, so that we have that land to pass on to the next generation. It’s an investment,” Levendofsky said. “Conserving that land, conserving the water and the soil is key to all of this.”
