AUDIO: Senator Chuck Grassley reacts to farm program payments
The USDA Economic Research Service recently released a report focusing on the distribution of farm payments.
The report detailed how farm program payments are being distributed around our country and how it?s changed over time. This report details the extent of that shift from 1991 to 2015. The takeaway is that more subsidies tend to go to bigger wealthier farmers.
?I?m not a fan of unlimited subsidies going to the largest farmers, at the same time, I?ve never tried to pass a law to limit the size of farms in our country,? Senator Chuck Grassley says. ?I do however strongly believe that at some point farms are big enough and shouldn?t continue to get unlimited federal dollars.?
He almost got this problem fixed in the last farm bill.
?I?m looking on working on this issue again in the next farm bill. The next generation of farmers will be in their prime of 25 years when the world is more stressed for food and need a fair chance to buy land,? Grassley says.
He adds some of our larger farmers need to ?temper their expectation for taxpayer dollars.?
Grassley says does plan to speak on the floor of the Senate about this.
