By Brad Wilson, 12/5/22. Brad’s Slide Shows: https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/presentations !
Brad’s home base: https://familyfarmjustice.me/brads-farm-justice-work-online/
How CAFOs are Subsidized
Some History of CAFOs and of the Biggest CAFO Subsidies: Paid by Farmers

3 Parts in this Slide Show
1. How CAFOs are Subsidized, (the Biggest Subsidies).!
1. They’re paid by farmers in the form of cheap grain.!
2. They’re caused by changes in the Farm Bill’s Commodity Title.!
2. How to End CAFO Subsidies.!
1. Farm Justice (Family Farm) groups offer proposals to end CAFO subsidies.!
2. 5 major econometric studies confirm that the proposals work.!
3. The History of Fighting CAFOs, 1950s-1990s.!
1. Massive activism from the Family Farm (Farm Justice) Movement.!
2. Important articles and reports dating back to the 1960s.

Photo: A family farm with hog raising facilities, with no hogs. Farms subsidized CAFOs, to then lose their own hogs.
Part 1: How CAFOs are Subsidized
The biggest CAFO subsidies are “paid” by farmers via below cost feed crops.

Congress Lowered Price
Floors, lowered market
prices, which subsidized
CAFOs with below cost feed
ingredients.!
Farm Subsidies, in yellow
on the lower chart, had little
impact. More on this below.!
To end CAFO
Subsidies, restore
minimum farm Price
Floors at “living wage” levels
(no subsidies needed).

What’s the Farm Bill?!
The real Farm Bill, below. But this core,
Market Management, was reduced,
1953-1995, then ended in 1996.!
1. Minimum Price Floors,!
2. Backed up by Supply
Reductions, as needed to
balance Supply and Demand.!
3. Top-side Maximum Price
Ceilings.!
4. To trigger the release of
Reserve Supplies, as
needed to address rare price
spikes.

Why do we need a Farm Bill
with market management?
!
✤ Free markets, (or the markets we
have,) chronically fail on both
supply (farmer) and demand
(consumers & Industry,) sides,
resulting in cheap, below cost
farm prices.
✤ Farms are only so big, and
planting decisions are made
far in advance of sales, so
farmers don’t cut back when
prices are cheap.
✤ Stomachs are only so big, so
consumers don’t change how
much they eat in response to
changes in farm prices.
Industry is similar.

Farmers Subsidizing CAFOs
✤ CAFOs: Confined Animal Feeding Operations.!
✤ Poultry & Hog Factories, Cattle Feedlots.!
✤ Feed Ingredients: Corn and other Feed Grains, (Barley, Oats,
Grain Sorghum,) Soybeans.!
✤ Market Prices Below the Full Cost of Production most of the
time since 1981.!
✤ When CAFOs can buy feed ingredients cheaper than farmers
can raise them, they have a big competitive advantage.

Crops: Corn, Soybeans, Wheat, Cotton, Rice, Sorghum Grain, Barley, Oats. Net (vs. full costs) per acre times acres.!
Source: USDA-ERS, Commodity Costs and Returns; USDA-NASS, Crop Production: Historical Track Records.
8 Crops: 1981-2012: Pink Below Cost.
Most of these crops, in pink, subsidized CAFOs for decades below the full costs of production.

Source: Timothy A. Wise and Elanor Starmer, “Industrial Livestock Companies’ Gains from Low Feed Prices, 1997-2005.” !
https://www.iatp.org/documents/industrial-livestock-companies-gains-low-feed-prices-1997-2005
Hogs: (No Price Floors) Billions for CAFOs!
Subsidizing CAFOs with cheap feed crops fosters concentration.

Poultry: (from farmers) Billions for CAFOs!
Farmers also lost poultry and livestock as they were forced to subsidize CAFOs.
Source: Timothy A. Wise and Elanor Starmer, “Industrial Livestock Companies’ Gains from Low Feed Prices, 1997-2005.” !
https://www.iatp.org/documents/industrial-livestock-companies-gains-low-feed-prices-1997-2005

Red to Brown: Livestock Farms Lost!
Source: USDA-NASS, Census of Agriculture, various years.

Subsidizing CAFOs resulted in a loss of the economic possibility of sustainable crop rotations.!
Source: USDA-NASS, Census of Agriculture, various years.
Sustainable Livestock Crop Farms Lost!
Most farms had significant diversity in 1950. Very few had it in 2017.

Source: USDA-NASS, Census of Agriculture, various years.
Corn Acres Increased!
Diverse, Sustainable Crop Rotations were lost! (Loss of Pasture, Hay and Oats!)

Photo, (2/5/87) press conference on the Family Farm Act: front: Helen Waller, Montana, Corky Jones, Nebraska, Merle
Hansen, Nebraska; back, Dixon Terry, Iowa, Jim Nichols, (Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture).
Part 2: How to End CAFO Subsidies
Family Farm Movement Proposals End CAFO Subsidies

Learn more here. https://zcomm.org/zblogs/fact-sheet-farm-justice-proposals-for-the-2012-farm-bill-by-brad-wilson/
Only Family Farmers Have the Proposals!
The solution has always been readily available from the Family Farm Movement.

Learn more here. https://zcomm.org/zblogs/fact-sheet-farm-justice-proposals-for-the-2012-farm-bill-by-brad-wilson/
These Groups & Politicians Led theWay!
x

Learn more here. https://zcomm.org/zblogs/fact-sheet-farm-justice-proposals-for-the-2012-farm-bill-by-brad-wilson/
Studies back up the Proposals

Green Subsidy and Subsidy Cap Proposals also fail, leaving cheap prices to subsidize CAFOs.
Proposals: Compared to these Farm Bills
Family Farm Movement proposals are much better than these Farm Bills.

Family Farm Movement Slogan: “Raise Less Corn and More Hell!”
Supply Reduction: Plant Less Corn
FAPRI 2-87. Also less Soybeans, less feed grains, (less oats, barley and grain sorghum).

FAPRI 2-87 study. Learn more here. https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/09/family-farm-act-of-1987/
ItWorks! Less Corn is Produced
Supply Reduction works well if managed well.

✤ Top left: FAPRI Study: fixing
oversupply of corn.!
✤ Top right: data: 6 crop carryover of
supply, parity vs. Republican poor
management vs. Democrats.!
✤ Bottom right: Parity proposal (top of
green) reduced oversupply more than
85 Farm Bill (top of tan); vs. no farm
program (top or red), affecting CAFO
subsidies.

FAPRI study, 2-87. Same for soybeans, oats, barley and grain sorghum.
CAFOs & AgBiz Pay Much More!
Independent family farmers have a big competitive advantage over CAFOs!

Fair Prices: Livestock move out of CAFOs!

I applied actual cost of production data, (USDA-ERS,) to data from the FAPRI study, 2-87. Here are the results for corn.
85 Farm Bill: Subsidize CAFOs!
Same problem for soybeans, oats, barley, grain sorghum.

Learn more here. https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/05/25/missing-food-movement-history-highlights-of-family-farm-
justice-1950-2000/
Part 3: History of Fighting CAFOs
The Family Farm Movement fought CAFOs, massively but mostly alone, for decades.

History. For decades the Family Farm Movement has been the main opponent of cheap prices for CAFOs. Here’s the story.
(Note: Today, the Family Farm Movement has the only proposals to end CAFO subsidies. More on this farther below.)
Who Opposed CAFO Subsidies?
The Family Farm Movement fought against cheap prices for CAFOs since the 1950s.

01
In this massive, exhausting, heroic, decades-long fight against
Agribusiness/CAFOs, the main Family Farm Movement
“torch” has been dropped by some, picked up by others.!
National Farmers Union has also been a major player over the decades.

For decades the Family Farm (Farm Justice) Movement has Opposed CAFOs.
NFO Vs. CAFOs: 1950s to 1970s
NFO, headquartered in Iowa, was the lead organization fighting CAFOs in earlier decades.

NFO StrategyVs. Cheap Prices
✤Farm Bill: Restore Adequate
Price Floors & Supply
Management.!
✤Collective Bargaining to
Raise Farm Prices.

NFOVs. CAFOs: 1960s
✤ Colorado Corporate Feedlot, “Colorado
NFO,” NFO Reporter, November 1966, pp. 8-9.!
✤ “The Road to Feudal Agriculture,” NFO
Reporter, November 1967, pp. 4-7. Aerial photo spread of
poultry CAFOs, (not yet called CAFOs).!
✤ Corporation Farming, “Biggest Farm Story of
the Decade,” NFO Reporter, November 1968, pp. 8-13.

NFO: Massive OrganizingVs.AgBiz
✤ Record crowd of 20,000 at NFO Convention, NFO Reporter,
1962.!
✤ “Over a Million at NFO Meetings” (in 19 States over a 6
month period) NFO Reporter, 1963.!
✤ Crowd of 35,400, 3,000 sat on curbs outside, 1,500
standing, August 16, 1967, NFO Reporter, 1967.!
✤ “NFO Reveals Text of Farm Bureau’s Propaganda
Letter,” NFO Reporter, 1963.

1970s-80s: AAM
American Agriculture Movement
✤100% of Parity!
✤ Make CAFOs & Agribusiness Pay Living Wage”
Farm Prices!!
✤“Tractorcade” Protests!
✤ Camped for months on the Mall below the Capitol
Building in Washington D.C., with Tractors!

Date
1974: Center for Rural Affairs
A Family Farm Movement organization Fighting CAFOs in the 1970s.

Date
1981: Center for Rural Affairs

Date
1980s-90s: North American Farm Alliance
Many “Family Farm” Alliances and Coalitions working together.

Date
1985: Iowa Farm Unity Coalition
Includes NFO, Iowa Farmers Union, Iowa CCI, PrairieFire, and others.

Date
1986: United Farmer & Rancher Congress
Fair Prices are the key to many major issues, including ending CAFO subsidies.

Date
1992-3: PrairieFire Rural Action

Date
1994: Center for Rural Affairs

Date
1995: Center for Rural Affairs

Date
1990s: Iowa CCI: Stop Factory Farms

Date
1997 Iowa CCI, Campaign for Family Farms & the Environment

Date
NPPC: Spying on Family Hog Farmers & Orgs.
NPPC against Iowa CCI, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Land
Stewardship project (MN), Center for Rural Affairs, (NE).

The National Pork Producer’s Council, a farmer front group, supported CAFOs.
1995: Renaming Anti-Farm NPPC
Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment: Iowa CCI, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Land Stewardship Project (MN).

Date
1990s: Iowa CCI, Missouri Rural Crisis Center: Many Others
The Vote was won nationally as well, against big money from NPPC.

Other CAFO Subsidies
✤ The “farmer-paid” subsidies from cheap farm prices are,
by far, the biggest CAFO subsidies.!
✤ EQIP CAFO subsidies are much smaller and paid by
USDA. It is very important that they be ended also, with
the money paid to sustainable family livestock and
poultry farmers instead!!
✤ USDA-FmHA Farm Loan programs also subsidize CAFOs
and it’s very important that these subsidies be ended also!