Nearly 28,000 farmers received crop subsidy or agricultural disaster payments every year for 32 years, said the Environmental Working Group in a report released today. The payments, from 1985-2016, averaged $687,204 per person annually and totaled at least $19.2 billion, according to EWG’s analysis of USDA data.
A frequent critic of crop subsidies and a supporter of land stewardship programs, the EWG contrasted the payments to farmers and ranchers to proposals by House Republicans to expand and toughen work requirements for SNAP recipients. “Federal law does not limit farmers from receiving farm subsidies or disaster payments, even if they have received a payment every year for 32 straight years,” said the green group. Some 245 of the 27,930 recipients identified in EWG’s analysis live in one of the 50 largest U.S. cities.
The largest recipient was Marsh Farms, of Sondheimer, Louisiana, a wheat, cotton, soybeans, corn and feed grain producer that received conservation, crop and disaster payments totaling $11.3 million, said EWG.
To read the EWG report, click here.