Real Facts

Farm Policy Facts

• Agriculture employs 14% of the U.S. workforce, or about 21 million people.
• Agriculture employs more than six times as many workers as the U.S. automotive industry.
• Agriculture is one of the few U.S. business sectors to boast a trade surplus, exporting $116 billion in farm goods in 2010.
• According to a 2008 USDA study, agricultural exports generated 920,000 full-time jobs, including 608,000 in the nonfarm sector.
• Americans spend just 9.5% of their income on food—less than any other country.
• U.S. farms sold $369 billion in goods in 2010—that’s bigger than the GDPs of nearly 200 countries.
• The most profitable side of the food business is in processing and marketing, not the farmer’s share. In fact, for every dollar that consumers spend on food, farmers receive just 20 cents.
• Of the $4.39 retail price of a box of cereal, farmers receive just 8 cents.
• Of the $3.99 retail price of a bag of potato chips, farmers receive less than 10 cents.
• The United States has the safest, most affordable, and most abundant food supply in the world.
• According to a recent study by Harris Interactive, 95% of Americans think it is important to produce food domestically.
• 97% of U.S. farms are run by families, farmer partnerships, or co-ops.
• The Bureau of Engraving and Printing depends on farmers to produce paper currency—75% of every bill is made of cotton.
• Fresno, California is the top-producing county in America when it comes to agricultural products.
• Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kentucky have the most farms.
• California, Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, and Illinois have the highest agriculture sales.
• 13% of U.S. agricultural exports originate in California.
• Commodity policies in the 2008 farm bill cost less than one-quarter of one percent of the federal budget—about 25 cents out of every $100 paid in taxes.
• Only 11% of funding in the farm bill goes to farm policies.
• More than 84% of farm bill-related spending goes to food and nutrition programs like food stamps, not to farmers.
• Farm policy funding has fallen sharply in the last decade. It was slashed in the 2008 farm bill by $7.4 billion, and again in 2010 by $6 billion.
• U.S. farm policy costs Americans just 2.3 cents per meal of 6.9 cents a day.
• Compared to other major agricultural producers around the globe, the U.S. ranks near the bottom of the subsidization and tariff scale.
• Over the life of the 2008 farm bill, total conservation spending increases from $3.7 billion in 2008, to $7.15 billion in 2021, more than the amount for traditional farm policies.
• Agricultural land provides habitat for 75% of the nation’s wildlife.
• About 46% of the country is farmland—that’s an area more than ten times the size of California and greater than twice the size of Alaska.

Useful Quotes

• “Our farmers deserve praise, not condemnation; and their efficiency should be cause for gratitude, not something for which they are penalized.” – President John F. Kennedy
• “Cultivators are the most valuable citizens…they are tied to their country.” – President Thomas Jefferson
• “In no other country do so few people produce so much food, to feed so many, at such reasonable prices.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower
• “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower
• “It will not be doubted that with reference either to individual or national welfare, agriculture is of primary importance…” – President George Washington
• “The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.” – President John F. Kennedy
• “I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman’s cares.”- President George Washington
• “Agriculture…is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.” – President Thomas Jefferson
• “…no other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture.” – President Abraham Lincoln
• “Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.” – William Jennings Bryan
•  “Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.” – Jonathan Swift