---
title: "Food, Farms, and Rural America | A Government That Works for the People"
canonical: "https://govthatworks.org/food-rural"
description: "Crop-insurance reform, agricultural competition, nutrition, conservation, rural health, broadband, and rural finance as one capacity agenda."
---
Economy & affordability · Chapter 21

# Food, Farms, and Rural America

Crop-insurance reform, agricultural competition, nutrition, conservation, rural health, broadband, and rural finance as one capacity agenda.

This page separates the book’s proposals from current-law evidence. Dollar figures attributed to the plan are author planning estimates unless otherwise stated.

**Read the source text in the book**Food, Farms, and Rural America

[Open Chapter 21](/reader?ch=21#chapter-21)

Two agricultural economies

## Farm policy reaches very different operations through the same statutes.

USDA data show that small family farms made up 54% of federal crop-insurance participants in 2022 but received 12% of payments; midsize and large-scale family farms were 42% of participants and received 80% of payments. The chapter uses distributional transparency and subsidy caps to focus support without pretending commercial agriculture can operate without risk management.

Crop insurance

### Cap premium subsidies per operation

Premium support remains, but high-dollar subsidies are capped, conservation compliance is enforced, and distribution is published so risk support does not become an unlimited transfer tied to scale.

Competition

### Restore Packers & Stockyards enforcement

The framework strengthens competition enforcement, contract transparency, and cash-market minimums while funding regional processing capacity so producers have more potential buyers.

Nutrition

### Universal school meals + adequate SNAP

Food security is treated as part of the same system as farm production, with school meals and nutrition assistance designed around adequacy and benefit interactions.

Working lands

### Fund conservation to demand

Voluntary working-lands programs would receive enough funding to accept a much larger share of qualified applications rather than using waitlists as a rationing mechanism.

Rural health

### Global budgets for essential hospitals

The American Health Trust would use predictable rural facility budgets rather than paying essential hospitals only when volume happens to be high enough to cover fixed costs.

Rural finance

### Broadband + CDFI capacity

Deployment deadlines, community-development finance, and regional processing investments are intended to make rural places more investable rather than treating agriculture as the only rural economic policy.

Agricultural economy breakdown

## Compare who participates, where support flows, and how concentrated processing has become.

The controls below reorganize the published USDA figures already shown on this page. They do not estimate unlawful conduct or predict prices.

Crop-insurance lens

### Federal crop insurance participants · 2022

Small family farms**54%**

Midsize + large-scale family farms**42%**

Other / nonfamily farms**4%**

Small family farms were 54% of crop-insurance participants but received a much smaller share of total payments.

Processing market

### Four-firm meatpacking share

**85%**steer/heifer purchases

Four largest firms**85%**

All other firms**15%**

USDA reports high concentration in steer and heifer purchases. Concentration by itself is not proof of unlawful market power.

Two agricultural economies — selected USDA indicators

| Measure | Small family farms | Midsize + large-scale family farms |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Share of federal crop-insurance participants · 2022 | 54% | 42% |
| Share of crop-insurance payments · 2022 | 12% | 80% |
| Share of harvested cropland · 2022 | 26% | 67% |

Meatpacking concentration

| Market | Share handled by four largest firms | USDA caveat |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Steer and heifer purchases | 85% | High concentration is clear; USDA notes the empirical link from concentration alone to livestock prices is more nuanced. |
| Hog purchases | 67% | Fewer packers can mean fewer buyers in many local markets, but concentration ratios are not themselves proof of unlawful conduct. |

**Goal**

Stable food prices through supply capacity and competition; farm support that reaches the households it is described as helping; rural counties that can hold their population.

**Instrument**

Crop insurance subsidy caps with enforced conservation compliance; restored Packers and Stockyards enforcement with cash-market minimums and contract transparency; regional processing capacity investment; conservation working-lands programs funded to demand; SNAP benefit adequacy and interaction repair; universal school meals; rural global-budget payment under the Health Trust; broadband deployment deadlines; Community Development Financial Institution expansion.

**Who pays**

Federal general revenue. Gross cost of roughly $18 billion to $30 billion a year at full phase-in, mostly universal school meals and nutrition benefit adequacy, less roughly $2 billion to $4 billion a year saved by the crop insurance subsidy cap, for a net cost of about $15 billion to $28 billion. Rural health financing is inside the Health Trust, not additive. Author planning estimates; Appendix E, row 10.

**Who implements**

Department of Agriculture (farm programs, nutrition, rural development); Department of Justice and the Packers and Stockyards Division (competition); the American Health Trust (rural facility payment); Department of Commerce and the states (broadband); Treasury CDFI Fund.

**Legal vehicle**

Farm bill reauthorization for most items; separate statute for Packers and Stockyards restoration; Health Trust authorizing statute for rural payment; no constitutional amendment required.

**Principal risk**

Competition remedies are litigated for a decade while consolidation continues, and the subsidy cap is repealed in the next farm bill by the coalition it disadvantages.

**Measure of success**

The farmer’s share of the retail food dollar stops declining; the share of conservation applications funded rises above three-quarters; rural hospital closures fall below five a year; unserved broadband locations fall below one percent; the gap between rural and metropolitan life expectancy narrows.

**Failure trigger**

If, seven years after enactment, the farmer’s share of the retail dollar has not stabilized and processing concentration is unchanged, the enforcement approach has failed and structural remedies, including divestiture and packer ownership limits, should be put on the table.

The Strongest Counterargument & the Author's Response

### Best case against

The chapter may spend more while asking too little of subsidy programs, and tougher antitrust enforcement may be too slow to change highly concentrated processing markets. Trade shocks can also overwhelm domestic farm-policy design.

### The author's response

The chapter keeps crop insurance because private markets cannot reasonably absorb all commercial agricultural risk, but caps the public subsidy and increases transparency. It also sets a seven-year failure trigger that puts structural remedies, including divestiture and ownership limits, on the table if enforcement does not change outcomes.

### What remains uncertain

Trade instability and the speed of competition litigation remain risks the chapter does not claim to solve completely.

Evidence & sources

## Primary data and research used on this page

[**USDA ERS · crop insurance by farm type**2022 participant, cropland, and payment shares](https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/109049)[**USDA ERS · meatpacking concentration**Four-firm steer/heifer and hog purchase shares](https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2024/january/concentration-in-u-s-meatpacking-industry-and-how-it-affects-competition-and-cattle-prices)

**Read the source text in the book**Food, Farms, and Rural America

[Open Chapter 21](/reader?ch=21#chapter-21)