John Phipps: Are Farmers Losing Interest in the Farm Bill?

Back in the good old days, farmers had a reliable topic of dispute to ease the boredom during a humdrum production year. This year is hardly that, but in my opinion, cultural arguments and political infighting have all but drowned out voices and opinions about one traditional debate. I speak of course about the 2023 Farm Bill.

It’s not just conversational competition from those trendier topics, but an unspoken realization that the Farm Bill just doesn’t have the influence on our economics it used to. To be sure there are specific segments of ag that do have much at stake in the legislative outcome, but here in corn and soy country, there are more than a few yawns.

Jonathan Coppess, an ag economist with farmdocDaily, illustrates why farm bills don’t pack the drama for producers they used to. The answer is ad hoc payments. That’s Latin for “helicopter money” or “money that falls from the sky”. It’s the yellow line.

Its most recent version was the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) initiated by the Trump administration. The beauty of ad hoc subsidies is they avoid all that messy process of legislation and squabbling over dollars, not to mention pretending to pay attention to a budget.

Using the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), the Ag Department simply sells some bonds to make payouts to farmers. This swift process has overshadowed traditional farm program negotiations that drag on for years.

As drought toys with much of the Midwest, the expectation grows for another helicopter drop. On the other hand, if recent precipitation relief continues, whopping surpluses could drive prices to the point of severe unprofitability for this most expensive crop ever planted.

The feverish farm bill quarreling among politicians, but especially those facing tough races next year will fade to whispered urgings for the administrative branch to fire up the monetary rain-making machine. This shift in how famers get money not just from taxpayers, but investors has altered our perception of government support. It may not be worth wading through the minutia of long-winded farm bills.

Clearly, helicopter money is where it’s at. For us in the media, this deletes out of a lot of possible content, but if the drought or other production problems intensify, the rumors of ad hoc windfalls will certainly provide ample ag social media fodder.