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EWG Farm Subsidy Investment Scorecard
An Analysis of Farm Subsidies in the 19th District of Texas
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Overview
As Congress begins its deliberations on the 2002 farm bill and the future of all major farm programs, EWG is embarking on a series of detailed computer analyses of farm subsidies by Congressional district and state. This analysis of the 19th district of Texas, home of House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest, is the first installment of reports in this series.
Since 1969, taxpayers have invested more than $6 billion in the TX-19 Congressional district — enough to buy every acre of farmland and every farm building in the district, with over $800 million to spare (See Table). An EWG computer analysis of the TX-19 District shows that the majority of federal farm subsidies has gone to a relatively small number of the very largest operations in the district. Small and medium-sized farms have received far lower amounts of subsidies. This finding raises the question of whether more resources should be made available through farm programs to aid such farmers.
At the same time, while we do not have data specific to 19th District of Texas, we know that not enough funding is coming into Texas to meet farmers' demands for assistance in improving water quality, enhancing wildlife habitat and reducing soil erosion. Less than one percent of the $4.3 billion in farm payments that taxpayers provided to Texas between 1996 and 1999 went to help farmers improve conservation and water quality practices on working farmland. Four out of 5 Texas farmers who have applied for financial aid to reduce water pollution are still waiting in line. Agricultural assistance has also failed to address the increasing need for funds to clean up impaired waters, prevent the loss of farm and ranchland to development and protect critical wildlife habitat. These "underinvestments" are all the more unfortunate because these are voluntary incentives-based programs of precisely the type that are supported both by agricultural leaders and environmental interests.
Are farm subsidies saving the "family farmer?"
The majority of taxpayer money spent in the TX-19 district went to the largest farm operations. From 1996 through 1999, nearly half of all subsidies in the 19th district went to the top 10 percent of recipients, many of whom received enormous subsidy payments. For example, the top 2 percent of recipients in Hartley County, TX received an average of $847,872 from 1996 through 1999, or more than $210,000 per recipient, per year (See Table).
By contrast, the average payment to a recipient among the bottom 90 percent of the subsidy scale -- including many small and medium sized farming operations -- was just over $25,000 over 4 years, or less than $6,500 per recipient, per year from 1996 through 1999. More than half of all subsidy recipients in the district received less than $5,000 per year of participation in the farm programs, and about 20 percent of program participants received less than $1,000 per year (See Table).
Have farm policies helped farmers become more "market oriented" and less dependent on government assistance?
In seven counties in the TX-19 district, government subsidies accounted for more than half of the total farm net income for farm corporations and proprietors from 1969 through 1998. For the district as a whole, farm subsidies made up 36 percent of total farm income over the period (See Table).
Have farm subsidies protected farm jobs?
Despite more than $6 billion in taxpayer subsidies that have been paid to the TX-19 district over the past three decades, the district lost 2 out of every 5 farm jobs between 1969 and 1998. The rate of farm job loss was nearly twice as steep in the TX-19 district as in the nation overall. Furthermore, farm employment fell from 12 percent of total employment in the district in 1969, to 4 percent in 1998 -- meaning that other sectors of the district's economy grew, while the heavily-subsidized farm sector shrank (See Table).
Are farmers in the 19th district of Texas taking advantage of existing conservation assistance programs offered by USDA?
Farmers in the counties that make up the TX-19 district collected $282 million in USDA conservation assistance from 1996 through 2000, or roughly $56 million each year. More than 8,500 of the 22,300 subsidy recipients in the district -- nearly 2 out of every 5 of those who received USDA subsidies from 1996 through 2000 -- participated in USDA conservation assistance programs over the 5-year period. In particular, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a program that was conceived by conservation groups in 1985, and was extended and reauthorized largely due to the efforts of the environmental community, has been extremely popular in the TX-19 district. The CRP has proven so popular with farmers that over the last 5 years, nearly 20 percent of all USDA subsidies in the district were for the CRP.
