The federal government is shelling out record levels of financial support for American farmers amid concerns about the stability of many family-owned operations, but critics are raising concerns about the rising agricultural subsidies and whether they are benefiting mostly wealthy farms.
In the previous year, U.S. farmers received nearly $30 billion from three primary categories of taxpayer-funded farm subsidies: Crop insurance, commodity protection and disaster relief, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That included $12 billion in “bridge payments” to farmers announced by the Trump administration at the end of the year.
More federal aid could be on the way with Congress considering a bill that calls for pumping another $10 billion into farm subsidies this year.
Next year, experts suggest, the overall price tag for farm subsidies could rise upward of $50 billion.
“Congress just can’t get enough of farm subsidies,” said Chris Edwards, of the Cato Institute, who tracks agricultural spending. “But these subsidies are not an emergency safety net for poor farm families. They’re permanent welfare for high-earning businesses.”
Ballooning federal farm subsidies
Farmers have been receiving large-scale federal support since the 1930s, when Congress approved commodity, price, supply, import and crop insurance support programs.
Over the years, the programs have been modified and expanded dramatically even as other types of federal safety-net assistance have dwindled.
The USDA oversees more than 150 programs providing direct subsidies and indirect support to farm businesses. Most are for large producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and other commodities.
About one-third of the nation’s two million farms receive regular subsidies, but that ratio is higher for larger farms, according to the federal agency.
By far, crop insurance is the largest federal farm subsidy program, costing taxpayers about $10 billion a year, according to USDA data. There are no income limits on crop insurance, and USDA data show the top 10% of farmers are getting 56% of all subsidies in the program.
Edwards said federal farm subsidies have ballooned into a sprawling, multi-billion-dollar system that disproportionately benefits large farm corporations and wealthy landowners.
The average income of U.S. farm households in 2024 was $159,334, he said, which was 32% higher than the $121,000 average of all U.S. households.
“But Congress steers subsidies to the wealthiest of those farm households. Two-thirds or more of payments from the major subsidy programs go to the largest 10% of farms,” Edwards said. “Even billionaires can receive farm subsidies.”
Trump administration dangles more aid
President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the Republican signed last year, dramatically expanded federal support and tax benefits for farmers, making it even easier for those not living or working on farms to claim the financial benefits.
The new law increased the reference prices for major crops by up to 20% and carved out another 30 million acres of land eligible for federal farm payments.
The White House has asked for another $10 billion in subsidies for farmers in a proposed supplemental spending bill to Congress for “temporary economic assistance for row and specialty crops planted this year.”
The bill, meant to support the war in Iran and other priorities, also calls for another $1.1 billion to subsidize farmers in Florida impacted by recent storm damage.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins defended the push for more support for the nation’s farmers as she announced $12 billion in “bridge funding” subsidies to help them deal with “market disruptions.”
“It is imperative we do what it takes to help our farmers, because if we cannot feed ourselves, we will no longer have a country,” Rollins said in a recent statement. “This will allow farmers to leverage strengthened price protection risk management tools and the reliability of fair trade deals so they do not have to depend on large ad hoc assistance packages from the government.”
Critics say the nation’s farmland crisis is largely “self-inflicted” because farmers are struggling under Trump’s global tariffs, which have cut them off from their export markets — and that taxpayer-funded bailouts are not going to solve that problem.
And the federal bailout payments only offer a temporary lifeline for many smaller farmers, advocates say, in many cases allowing them to pay off debt.
“Short-term payments, while important, are only a first step,” National Farmers Union President Rob Larew said in a statement. “What we truly need are long-term structural fixes that restore viability and stability to family farms and ranches for generations to come.”
Who is benefiting?
As the amount of taxpayer-funded payouts increases, the money is going to fewer small farms, and in some cases individuals who live nowhere near a farm, according to researchers.
Federal farm programs that provide subsidies for commodities, conservation, insurance costs and disaster relief generally require recipients only to be “actively engaged” in farming. Watchdog groups say it’s easy to qualify, even if the recipient doesn’t live or work on a farm.
Under the programs, individuals can qualify for payments if they make contributions of capital, land, labor or management to a farming operation and share in its profits and risks.
Nearly 9,000 farmers have received taxpayer money every year since 1985 through USDA payments totaling roughly $10.6 billion, according to a recent analysis by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.
The average annual payout was $29,000 a year over the 41-year period, according to the group, which has posted an online database of recipients.
Farmers in Texas collected more than $54 billion in subsidies between 1985 and 2025, according to the group’s database, while New York farmers collected more than $3.8 billion in subsidies in the same window.
Florida farmers received more than $6 billion in subsidies during the four-decade timeframe while Pennsylvania received about $4 billion, the data show.
In most cases, the payouts for farm subsidies and disaster relief went to large-scale farming operations, the group said.
“The top 10% of farmers over the last 30 years have taken in nearly 80% of all farm subsidies,” said Jared Hayes, the group’s senior policy advisor. “That’s a situation that seems unlikely to change. There’s no real appetite in Washington to change it.”
Hayes said the federal farm subsidy system overwhelmingly rewards the nation’s largest and wealthiest operations, not family farms that have been disproportionately impacted by lower commodity prices, higher input costs and uncertainty driven by Trump’s tariffs and the war with Iran.
“This is basically a manufactured crisis, and the impact of tariffs and the Iran War makes it a hard time for a small farmer,” he said. “At the same time, all this money that they’re sending out is going to the largest and most successful operations, leaving small, struggling farms behind.”
He said Trump’s tax cuts and policy law pushed through last year by Republicans in Congress changed policy to increase these payouts for a select few farmers. He said Congress is considering a Farm Bill 2.0, but it doesn’t contain “much-needed” changes to federal subsidy programs.
Farmers seek more federal aid
Despite the massive uptick in agricultural subsidies, farmers are asking Trump and Congress to carve out more money to help their struggling operations.
In a July 16 letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders last week, American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said farmers are facing $31 billion in projected losses this year.
He attributed the losses to several years of high inflation coupled with added price volatility for fertilizer and other crucial needs due to the closure of Iran’s Strait of Hormuz during the growing season.
“This has led to extremely tight operating margins and increased economic pressures on America’s farmers,” Duvall wrote. “An alarming number of farm families are financially underwater from the last several years of sustained losses.”
Duvall urged Congress to support market relief for America’s farmers “that is sufficiently robust and broadly structured enough to reflect the depth of losses across agriculture.”
“As we approach harvest, many growers may have difficulty securing financing to grow their next crop,” Duvall wrote. “Congressional action on market relief cannot wait until another growing season has passed.”