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Re:

House Farm Bill Proposal Could Have Raised Crop Subsidy Costs 56%, Analysts Estimated

Analysts projected about $23 billion in additional crop-program spending under a 2024 House farm bill proposal, with the largest proportional increases for cotton, rice, and peanuts.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
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Analysts estimated that a 2024 House farm bill proposal could have added about $23 billion in crop subsidy spending over 10 years—roughly 56% above the baseline they modeled. That was a forecast based on proposed changes to commodity programs, not a record of spending that occurred or a statement of current law.

How the analysts arrived at the $23 billion estimate

In a May 14, 2024 analysis, Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University and Gary Schnitkey, Nick Paulson, Jonathan Coppess, and Bruce Sherrick of the University of Illinois modeled proposed changes to Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC). They estimated an additional $17.0 billion from a 10% increase in statutory reference prices and approximately $5.8 billion from proposed ARC changes. Combined, those components came to about $23 billion over the 10-year period they modeled, or 56% above their comparison baseline. farmdoc daily’s analysis explains the estimates and assumptions.

The proposal’s summary described reference-price increases ranging from 10% to 20%, according to Chuck Abbott’s May 16, 2024 report. The $17.0 billion figure is specifically tied to the analysts’ modeled 10% scenario; it should not be treated as a projection for every increase in the proposal’s range.

What statutory reference prices do

A statutory reference price is a crop-specific benchmark used in the PLC commodity program. In simplified terms, when the applicable market-year average price falls below the statutory reference price, PLC may make a payment, subject to program rules. Raising that benchmark can make payments more likely or larger when market prices are low enough to trigger them. The $17.0 billion estimate reflects modeled effects of the proposed benchmark increase, not a guaranteed payment to producers.

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ARC is a separate commodity program with its own payment calculation. The analysts attributed approximately $5.8 billion of their combined estimate to proposed ARC changes. The total therefore combined estimated effects in two programs; it was not solely a PLC estimate.

Which crops were projected to see the largest proportional increases?

The estimated effect varied by crop. In the analysts’ 10% reference-price scenario, spending was projected to rise by 69% to 140% for cotton, rice, and peanuts, compared with 8% to 40% for corn, soybeans, and wheat. These are modeled percentage changes in program spending for the crop groups—not observed changes in farm income or individual producers’ payments.

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Crop group Estimated spending increase under a 10% reference-price increase How to interpret it
Cotton, rice, and peanuts 69%–140% Farmdoc daily analysts’ modeled percentage increase in commodity-program spending.
Corn, soybeans, and wheat 8%–40% Farmdoc daily analysts’ modeled percentage increase in commodity-program spending.

The proposed percentage increase in a reference price was not the same as the projected percentage increase in program spending. Rice, peanuts, and seed cotton had statutory reference prices that were higher relative to their market-year average prices than those for corn, soybeans, and wheat. The analysts said this starting relationship could make the spending response larger for the first group when reference prices rose. They characterized the proposal’s likely distributional effect as favoring Southern growers over farmers in the North and Midwest; that is an assessment of the modeled policy’s broad effects, not a claim about every farm or producer.

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What the estimate did—and did not—say about the bill

The 56% figure compared modeled crop-program spending under the House proposal with the analysts’ baseline across a 10-year window. It was not a 56% increase in all farm-bill spending, a one-year increase, or an observed change in payments. The estimate also does not establish the proposal’s ultimate legislative disposition or what current law provides as of October 8, 2026.

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The analysts wrote that, under budgetary rules, increased commodity spending would need to be offset elsewhere in the farm bill, naming crop insurance, conservation, or nutrition as possible areas. This was a conditional policy tradeoff, not a statement that any particular program’s funding was cut by the amount of the crop subsidy estimate. SNAP reductions were part of the broader political dispute around the House proposal, but they were not an arithmetic component of the analysts’ $23 billion crop-program estimate.

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