In 2024, the government provided $9.3 billion in subsidy payments to farmers for commodity crops. Subsidies made up 5.9% of total farm earnings that year, with the most funding going to corn, soybeans, and cotton.
What are farm subsidies?
Farm subsidies, also known as agricultural subsidies, are financial support from the federal government to farmers and agricultural businesses. Subsidies help farms deal with disaster relief, risk management, the development of specific farming practices, conservation efforts, and more.
The federal government has been providing farm subsidies since 1933, when the first Farm Bill was passed as part of the New Deal to support struggling farms during the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and falling crop prices after World War I. This bill created a system that issued payments to farmers in exchange for producing certain commodity crops; at the time, these included wheat, cotton, field corn, swine, rice, tobacco, and milk.
The Farm Bill is standing legislation that Congress re-visits approximately every five years as farming, farming needs, and what’s considered a commodity, shift. The most recent Farm Bill was passed in 2018. Today’s commodity crops include corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, sorghum (a type of grain), rice, peanuts, oats, barley, milk, swine, and calves (specifically, cows).
How much farm income comes from subsidies?
Farm subsidies have added an average of $17.6 billion to farm income each year from 1933 to 2024, adjusted for inflation.
The lowest total was in 1949, at $2.4 billion: subsidies dropped post-World War II in part because agriculture shifted from shortage to surplus, reducing the need for government aid. The highest was in 2020, at $55.3 billion, primarily due to pandemic-related aid.
Since farm subsidies began in 1933, they’ve contributed an average of 13.5% of net farm income nationwide. In 2024, subsidies totaled 5.9% of farm income, 7.6 percentage points lower than the 91-year average.
Subsidies made up the largest-ever share of total farm income — 40.5% — in 2000. The years before and after were also among the highest: 37.1% in 1999 and 36.1% in 2001. Food prices fell in the late 1990s, reducing farm earnings. Government subsidies helped offset losses and kept many farms financially stable during this period.
The second-highest percentage of farm income attributable to subsidies was in 2020, when subsidies to offset operating losses from the COVID-19 pandemic.
How do subsidies vary by crop type?
Corn was the most-subsidized crop in 2024; corn farms received $3.2 billion, or 30.5% of all federal farm subsidies. Corn makes up 95% of all US-produced feed grains (a category that also includes oats, barley, and sorghum). It’s used for livestock feed, ethanol production, and food in products like sweeteners, corn oil, beverages, starch, and alcohol.
Soybeans came in second with $1.9 billion, 17.9% of all subsidies. They were the only two crops to exceed $1 billion.
Three other crops – cotton, wheat, and pastureland – accounted for 25.9% of subsidies, and the remaining 25.7% was split among 130 other commodities.
What types of subsidy payments are there?
Subsidies can come as direct payments, crop insurance, loans, or other forms of assistance. They are largely supported by two arms of the Department of Agriculture: The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). Both were founded during the Great Depression and are considered mandatory spending, meaning their budgets are handled largely outside of the congressional appropriations process.
The CCC supports farm income and keeps food prices stable with loans, direct payments, and surplus crops purchases. It mainly supports farmers of certain crops like corn, wheat, and soybeans.
The FCIC works with private insurers to run the nation’s crop insurance system, helping farmers protect their crops and incomes from bad weather, disease, and falling prices. The federal crop insurance program is managed by the USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA). The FCIC subsidies make insurance more affordable for farmers by covering a large chunk of farmers’ insurance premiums — since 2014, the FCIC has subsidized an average of 62.2% of premiums each year.
Farms have become more costly to insure over time: adjusted to 2024 dollars, FCIC premiums, subsidies, and indemnities have all increased since data tracking began in 1989. Premiums were $17.3 billion in 2024, down 16.1% from a 2022 peak of $20.6 billion; subsidies peaked the same year at $12.8 billion.
Indemnity payments (the amount a farmer is paid if their crops are damaged or their revenue falls below what they’re insured for) peaked in 2012 at $23.9 billion. The second-highest yearly indemnity total was also in 2022, at $21.4 billion.
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Page sources and methodology
All of the data on the page was sourced directly from government agencies. The analysis and final review was performed by USAFacts.
