5 ms·

>particularly notable is that the biggest 10% of farms take 90% of the subsidy How much crop production do the biggest 10% of farms represent?

by jml7c5 5y ago

shawn-butler 5y ago
Large-scale family farms and industrial nonfamily farms account for only 4.8% of farms, but 57.4% of production (in $). Small-scale family farms represent nearly 90% of U.S. farms, but only 21.5% of production. Source is USDA (2020) America’s Diverse Family Farms.
theptip 5y ago
It's a good question, and I don't have the answer. Here's a reasonable jumping-off point that I've started investigating: https://www.cato.org/commentary/examining-americas-farm-subsidy-problem https://www.cato.org/commentary/examining-americas-farm-subs... And here's a more detailed NBER paper digging into distribution of subsidies: https://www.nber.org/papers/w16693 https://www.nber.org/papers/w16693 My general impression so far is that the subsidies are not being disbursed pro-rata to production rates, and larger farms (having more legal resources) are much more able to capture these subsidies; for example with exotic ownership structures of lots of subsidiaries, to maximize the capture of subsidies. These financial/legal engineering strategies simply aren't available to smallholders. It's the same sort of incentive structure that produces outcomes like the biggest companies paying the lowest tax rates. Also, correction, I believe I have mis-quoted the stats off the top of my head -- the Cato article suggests it's more like 80% of subsidies to the top 10%. The general point still stands.
- SilasX 5y ago
  >It's a good question, and I don't have the answer. It's really the kind of thing you want to resolve before spreading a statistic like that.
  - theptip 5y ago
    I couldn’t disagree more. I was clear about my level of epistemic uncertainty in my OP. And there is a good discussion going on here.
    - SilasX 5y ago
      Not about that part of it, no, and that information is critical context for interpreting that figure. So yes, you maybe said insightful things other than that comment, but you didn’t open up about critical content there.

>particularly notable is that the biggest 10% of farms take 90% of the subsidy How much crop production do the biggest 10% of farms represent?

by jml7c5 5y ago

>particularly notable is that the biggest 10% of farms take 90% of the subsidy How much crop production do the biggest 10% of farms represent?

shawn-butler 5y ago

Large-scale family farms and industrial nonfamily farms account for only 4.8% of farms, but 57.4% of production (in $). Small-scale family farms represent nearly 90% of U.S. farms, but only 21.5% of production. Source is USDA (2020) America’s Diverse Family Farms.

theptip 5y ago

It's a good question, and I don't have the answer. Here's a reasonable jumping-off point that I've started investigating: https://www.cato.org/commentary/examining-americas-farm-subsidy-problem https://www.cato.org/commentary/examining-americas-farm-subs... And here's a more detailed NBER paper digging into distribution of subsidies: https://www.nber.org/papers/w16693 https://www.nber.org/papers/w16693 My general impression so far is that the subsidies are not being disbursed pro-rata to production rates, and larger farms (having more legal resources) are much more able to capture these subsidies; for example with exotic ownership structures of lots of subsidiaries, to maximize the capture of subsidies. These financial/legal engineering strategies simply aren't available to smallholders. It's the same sort of incentive structure that produces outcomes like the biggest companies paying the lowest tax rates. Also, correction, I believe I have mis-quoted the stats off the top of my head -- the Cato article suggests it's more like 80% of subsidies to the top 10%. The general point still stands.

SilasX 5y ago
>It's a good question, and I don't have the answer. It's really the kind of thing you want to resolve before spreading a statistic like that.
- theptip 5y ago
  I couldn’t disagree more. I was clear about my level of epistemic uncertainty in my OP. And there is a good discussion going on here.
  - SilasX 5y ago
    Not about that part of it, no, and that information is critical context for interpreting that figure. So yes, you maybe said insightful things other than that comment, but you didn’t open up about critical content there.