News

The price tag for subsidizing cottonseed turns out to be a whopping $10 billion over the next 10 years. The cotton industry wants to take that big chunk of change out of the pockets of taxpayers who...

In 2014, Congress eliminated direct payments to farmers, replacing them with two new subsidy programs known as Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC County) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC). The Congressional...

The corn ethanol mandate requires refiners to blend more and more ethanol into gasoline. But there is already a “natural” marketplace demand for ethanol. If there were no mandate, gasoline refiners...

Huge multinational corporations are selling off their crop insurance businesses. The reason, according to the industry, is that business is just too bad, despite billions in federal subsidies. What...

What could a member of Congress who has collected more than $3 million in federal cotton subsidies want in his Christmas stocking this year? If you're Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), the answer is...

Greed, at least when it comes to the cotton industry and its lobbyists, isn't taking a break this holiday season. Cotton farmers cut a sweet deal in the 2014 farm bill. In return for their very own...

The head of the crop insurance industry's trade group is objecting to an EWG analysis that found that crop insurance companies could easily absorb cuts to their taxpayer-guaranteed rate of return. But...

A back-room deal to restore crop insurance companies' sky-high guaranteed rate of return won't stand if Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has anything to say about it.

Crop insurance has come under attack for its increasing cost, environmental harm and secrecy. The farm lobby, the crop insurance industry and their political patrons push back by claiming that despite...

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) will oppose a budget deal because $3 billion in savings come at the expense of giant crop insurance companies. In his statement, Rep. Cramer called a proposal to limit...

The savings to taxpayers from the so-called reform of federal farm subsidies are turning out to be mythical – while cuts to programs to help farmers protect the environment are all too real.

A new EWG report released this week pulls back the curtain on the billions of taxpayer dollars that get wasted every year through the “prevented planting” federal crop insurance program that...

In a recent article in Politico, reporter David Rogers took issue with estimates of per-acre subsidy payments that growers could receive under the Agriculture Risk Coverage farm subsidy program...

Buried in a recently released U.S. Government Accountability Office report is staggering evidence that the federal government's crop insurance program serves as another source of farm business income...

The 2014 farm bill will prove to be the most expensive ever thanks to new subsidies Congress added on top of the already costly crop insurance program, researchers at the University of Missouri said...

This weekend, Republican candidates for President will head to the first-ever Iowa Agriculture Summit to pledge their fealty to “free markets” and “smaller government.”

Based on this week's House Agriculture Committee hearings, you might think it's the food stamp program – and not the heavily subsidized farm subsidy program – that is plagued by fraud and abuse.

A new report shows that some farmers could receive larger payments under newly implemented crop insurance programs than they would have through the discredited -- and now defunct -- direct payments...

Growing corn to make fuel for your car just doesn't work. And reversing government policies that require it would ease a world of problems.