As discussed in a May 25, 2023, SAT article “The Silly Season Has Begun… Must Be Farm Bill Time,” every farm bill cycle, we run across a report or research geared toward “informing” farm bill discussions that, while not technically wrong, boy does it leave out something kind of important…hence the term “Silly Season.” This time the article was written by Scott Faber and Jared Hayes of the Environmental Working Group. Their September 5, 2023, article entitled “Calls to Increase Crop Reference Prices Would Help Fewer Than 6,000 Farmers” caught our attention.
The authors analyzed individual producer payment data from their database of FSA payment data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to arrive at the following conclusions:
“Increasing price guarantees for major crops would mostly benefit farmers of peanuts, cotton and rice in Southern states, not corn and soybean farmers, EWG has previously found, which further limits the overall benefit of increasing price guarantees.
Only 5,630 farmers, mostly located in Southern states, received more than $50,000 in 2021 through the Price Loss Coverage, or PLC, program, according to USDA data, and would get more than a few thousand dollars if price guarantees went up.” [READ MORE]