A Bountiful Harvest of Crops and Cash

If the goal of federal farm policy since 1997 has been to extract every last bushel from every acre, then it has succeeded. Iowa’s corn production increased from 1.66 billion bushels that year to 2.44 billion bushels in 2009 — 47 percent. In the Corn Belt as a whole, corn production grew by 40 percent.

For farmers, it has been a bountiful harvest — of crops and cash. Farm household income has been above average U.S. household income every year since 1996. The five best years ever for farm income have all come since 2003.⁴⁹

It has also been a bountiful harvest of taxpayers’ cash, with most of it going to farm households that are doing far better than the average American family. The average household income of farms that received $30,000 or more in government payments in 2008 was above $210,000 — more than three times the average of all households ($68,424). Farms with household incomes of $110,000 received between $10,000 and $29,999 on average in government payments.⁵⁰