As the 2024 presidential election nears, voters are demanding more information about what politics might look like under Democratic nominee Kamala Harris or Republican nominee Donald Trump.

For farm policy, experts predict it could take two very different paths depending on the election results: more tariffs and subsidies for big farmers under Trump, or climate investment and expanded crop insurance under Harris. The newspaper there reports.

To know what might happen under a second Trump administration, clues can be found from his first presidency. As for a Harris administration, the question will be how much a new Democratic president would continue the policies of her predecessor, Joe Biden.

Trump’s Tariffs and Subsidies

Early in his term, former President Trump withdrew from a free trade agreement the US signed in 2016 that would have lowered trade barriers for domestic manufacturers. Soon after, Trump invoked a series of tariffs on imports from almost every other country in the world. Many countries retaliated by invoking their own tariffs on American products.

This eventually led to a trade dispute with China, which resulted in high tariffs on agricultural products, especially soybeans and pork products.

To support farmers who have lost business from global consumers, Trump authorized $14.5 billion for the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Market Facilitation Program to provide payments to farmers affected by “unwarranted retaliatory foreign tariffs” .

It also gave the green light to use Commodity Credit Corporationa credit program that the USDA can use to pay farmers without requiring appropriations from Congress.

“It looks a lot more like an entitlement program,” said Jonathan Coppes, a politics professor at the University of Illinois and former administrator of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.

“So you can sign up and you’re eligible for payment, and then the payers just pay off the loan, they basically pay off the credit card,” he said.

That provided a lot of flexibility for the USDA, but combined with the market facilitation program and payments farmers already received from programs in the 2018 farm bill, Coppess said some payments were made to the same people — including many operate on a large scale. operations that do not need extra money.

This is a problem that goes further than the Trump administration. Large-scale federal support for agriculture was first implemented in the 1930s to protect farmers from volatile markets caused by tariffs, natural disasters or economic downturns. But in recent decades, most of that spending has gone to the biggest and wealthiest farms.

“Not only do they get a disproportionate amount of the income, they get a disproportionate amount of the safety net,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a Daily Yonder interview.

Biden’s rural policy extends beyond Ag

Vilsack said the Biden administration has been trying to address how to channel more federal resources to smaller farms. Millions of dollars are available through The American bailout act expand small farming operations and support farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture initiatives. The Inflation Reduction Act injected $19.5 billion into USDA conservation programs that boost organic farming.

President Biden has invested in rural communities more broadly through policies such as Bipartisan Infrastructure Actwhich funds broadband infrastructure, upgraded wastewater and drinking water systems, and road and bridge development, to name a few.

The Biden administration also inherited Trump’s coronavirus food assistance program, which provided $19 billion in aid for farmers and ranchers at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden administration EXTENDED program gone in 2021.

But Biden’s time in the White House has also been defined by lengthy negotiations over the farm bill, which are nearly a year behind schedule.

Farm Bill headache

Farm law goes far beyond supporting individual farmers. For example, it funds food stamp benefits and rural development, such as sanitation and drinking water needs. The bill is reauthorized by Congress every five years, but often takes longer to pass.

That’s what happened with the 2023 farm bill. Fierce partisan debate over how much money should be spent on which programs marred negotiations, and nearly a year after the 2018 farm bill expired, a new five-year farm bill has yet to was adopted, even with proposals from both sides. Chamber and Senate.

“I think among farm countries that they can’t get a 2023 farm bill through shows tremendous dysfunction and unwillingness to come to the negotiating table,” said Joe Maxwell, co-founder of Farm Action and former Lt. governor of Missouri. “Both sides are just rooting.”

Maxwell said this dysfunction could increase public frustration with politics, especially as the 2024 presidential election nears.

2025 and beyond

Agriculture experts predict two very different realities for agricultural policy depending on the results of this election.

Another Trump administration would likely produce more tariffs on China. It also could provide more subsidies to the largest agricultural operations, according to Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group.

He is worried about what the farm bill proposals from Republicans Glenn Thompson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and John Boozman, ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, would mean for small farmers.

“The House bill, in particular, provides a road map for what Republicans could do if they controlled the entire Congress and the White House,” Faber said. The proposed bill would raise reference prices for only a few agricultural products, such as peanuts, rice and cotton. This means those farmers are guaranteed payment through the USDA Cover for loss of price program if the market value of these products falls below the reference price. But it leaves out many other commodity farmers, especially those with smaller operations.

Critics fear large farm operations would be cut in half on various subsidy programs if the House farm bill were to pass. “The increase in farm subsidies would be the largest in more than a generation, even as farm bankruptcies are at a 20-year low,” Faber said.

Instead, the Democratic farm bill from Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow would include climate-smart agriculture investments created by the Inflation Reduction Act in the new farm bill.

It would also expand access to crop insurance, which for many farmers has been difficult to obtain due to high premium costs. Stabenow’s proposal would be grow federal support for farmers’ premium expenses and makes access to higher levels of insurance coverage more affordable.

While Congress is the main driving force behind agricultural policy, the president can direct that force in certain ways.

President Biden has led Congress toward climate action and rural investment during his four years in office. Secretary Vilsack said he is confident that Vice President Harris is aware of these steps being taken by the Biden administration.

He also said Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has replicated some of those farm policies as governor of Minnesota, which could mean they will be prioritized at the federal level if Harris and Walz are elected to the White House in November.

“I’m confident that I understand the importance of (investing in small farmers) and the importance of it based on my current experience with them,” Vilsack said.

This story was produced by The newspaper there and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.