When we think about the farm bill, most of us think about helping family farms, but this is far from the case. The current farm bill was authorized in 2014, and that bill is to take us through 2018. The previous farm bill cost taxpayers $604 billion over ten years. The current farm bill is costing us $489 billion over five years. This is an increase of 62 percent from the last authorized farm bill. When it comes to the issue of transparency, one of the areas of government that has been spotlighted the most is the farm bill. Why? Because the farm bill is no longer about helping farms produce their crops, it is about nutrition and large corporate farms.

When it comes to the farm bill, we have a tendency to think that this bill is about helping our farms with risk aversion. But that is far from the case. Now, 80 percent of the farm bill is dedicated to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other nutrition programs. SNAP is the former food stamp program. When we look at the portion that goes to the farmers, it is definitely not helping the small farmer.

When reviewing the USDA subsidy payments, we see that 25 percent of all payments go to the top 1 percent of farmers in the United States. That percentage becomes 57 percent of all farmers at the top 5 percent, meaning the smaller farmers are not receiving these benefits. One argument is that the top 5 percent of all farms in the United States are large farming productions and should be operating as a business and shouldn’t need to receive crop subsidies. So the farm bill isn’t helping our small farmers. Instead, it is being used to remove risk for large corporate farms!

Instead of helping decrease the risk to small farmers, the current farm bill works to destroy the small farmer and hurt the taxpayer. The payments that farmers are receiving hurt the taxpayers in two major ways. The first is that taxpayers are insuring the risk to the farmers with our tax dollars, and the second is that we pay inflated costs for food because of the effects of the farm bill.

In 2000, the average value per acre of Iowa farmland was $1,857, and in 2015, it had risen to $7,625. That is down from its high of $8,715 in 2013. This is an increase of 311 percent! There is no way a small farmer can buy farmland or even think about getting into the farm business. The only way large farms can afford to continue to pay this price per acre is by the subsidy payments they are receiving from the government. When we look at Iowa, we are still ranked second for subsidies from 1995 to 2014. The state has received $26,948,493,195 during that period of time.

We can’t continue to sustain the agricultural industry forever. Farming isn’t the only business with risk involved. Every small business start-up in our country knows that it is scary to start your own business, but people continue to open businesses every day. We don’t minimize the risk, but the taxpayers can’t continue to subsidize this industry the way we are.

It is time for government to get out of the way. This will allow the market to work in farming, farmland prices to return to an affordable amount, and food prices to stabilize at a reasonable level. What we have now is agricultural welfare, and it is time we return to our roots and allow the entrepreneurial spirit of the farmer to take the lead. This is what is best for farming and our country.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Public Interest Institute. They are brought to you in the interest of a better informed citizenry.

Jennifer L. Crull, IT Specialist, Public Interest Institute in Mount Pleasant.