Iowa's Senator Tom Harkin has been the most important Congressman working on farm issues of the past 7 decades. He rose to prominence during the 1980s phase of the chronic farm crisis, as he introduced two major farm bill proposals. First, in 1985, came the Farm Policy Reform Act, which became known as the Harkin-Alexander proposal. Then, in 1986, he updated it as the Family Farm Act of 1986, which became known as the Harkin-Gephardt proposal. More recently, however, when Harkin became Senate Agriculture Chair, he has backed away from these proposals. that is what we see in the interview that is reviewed here, which is the initial podcast of Canary in the Cornfield. This review first examines Harkin's positions in light of the Great Depression and the invention of the Farm Bill in the Democratic New Deal. Those programs had an awesome impact. Second, we look at Harkin's proposals in light of the 1980s farm crisis, the biggest crisis of U.S. agriculture since the Depression. this crisis was caused by decades of reductions of farm programs below New Deal standards. As in the case of the New Deal, Harkin's Democratic Party proposals were awesome, as measured by studies of them by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, (FAPRI). In this case, however, the proposals did not pass, but instead farm policy continued downward, and continued to cause enormous social, economic, environmental and other problems. Third, as Senate Agriculture Chair, Harkin essentially switched sides, and supported the Republican approach to farm policy, but with attempts to green it up a bit. I have called this "The Harkin Compromise. In making this change, Harkin had a major influence on farm bill activism, (on groups like the National Farmers Union, the National Family Farm Coalition, and on the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. These, in turn, affected the Food Movement and the Environmental Movement. Harkin's change also significantly affected the Democratic Party's approach to farm issues. Major rural Democrats, who had supported Harkin back to the 1980s followed him in this change. Since then, as new Democratic Party Agriculture Committee members came forth, they seem to have followed Harkin closely in the new approach. Starting with the Obama administration, there have also been a number of appointees who seem to be "Harkin appointees, in Iowa, and in Washington, and including former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, who became Secretary of Agriculture under Obama and Biden. Since Harkin made this change, Democrats in Iowa and elsewhere have become less and less successful at winning the rural vote. So the political implications of Harkin's change continue to be of major importance. What this slide show does is to provide a mass of data to tell the deeper story of these changes. The focus is not on the political and social movement impacts, but on the stark realities that lie hidden behind these social and political changes.

1. Brad Wilson, 7/22/25, https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/presentations
Review of Canary in the Cornfield: Podcast #1
This is a review of Adam Shriver’s Interview of former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

2. Brad Wilson, 7/17/25 (Behind Iowa senator Tom Harkin, Jim Hightower, Texas Commissioner of
Agriculture & Rural Caucus, Dixon Terry, Jim Nichols, Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture.)
Review: Harkin Institute, CAFOs & Public Health
From Iowa’s Greatest Supporter of Farmers To Republican Compromises

3. Outline: Harkin’s Farm BillWork in Context
The Depression & the Farm Bill, the 1980s Farm Crisis, the “Freedom to Fail” Compromise
✤ Part 1: 1933-1952: The Democratic New Deal:
Inventing the Farm Bill, Establishing Parity.!
✤ Part 2: 1980s: Tom Harkin Works to Restore &
Update New Deal Farm Programs.!
✤ Part 3: 2000s: “The Harkin Compromise:”
Abandoning Market Management, tinkering
with subsidies.

4. The Farm Bill wasn’t just for the Depression. It was for chronic market failure. The Farm Bill managed
markets. The problem, market failure, and has continued to today, but the programs were ended in 1995.
Farm Bill: What HappenedWhen?
Today it’s usually not known WHAT happened. Or WHEN it happened.

5. WHY? The reason for Farm Programs: not correctly identified in the Podcast.
Market Failure: Lack of Price Responsiveness
Market management farm programs are needed because of chronic market failure.

6. Harkin: farmers’ greatest supporter in Congress during the later period: 1980s.
Part 1: (The Depression and the New Deal)
This is the context for the invention of the Farm Bill during the Democratic New Deal.

7. New Deal Farm Justice (Parity)
✤ The Farm Justice Title was named “The Commodity
Title.”!
✤ It ran farm programs like a business, managing
supply like all big industrial companies can and do
do for themselves.!
✤ Parity: the traditional standard of economic
distributive farm justice, was achieved for U.S.
agriculture as a whole from 1942-1952.

8. 2 parts for the bottom side of farm prices: the usual need. 2 parts for the top side of farm prices: needed occasionally.
4 Parts (Harkin Mentioned Parts 2 & 4)
Note: No Subsidies are needed with adequate Price Floor/Supply reduction programs.

9. Includes potatoes, sweet potatoes, dry edible beans, dry smooth peas. !
For the next slide, note that corn and cotton price floors started in 1933, wheat in 1938.
New Deal Price Floor Programs
For 1942-52, U.S. agriculture achieved 100% of parity or more.

10. Price Floors were ended after 1995.
Parity years: Price Floors @ 85% or 90% of parity
Early % of parity figures for crops are only available for 1935-39 as a whole.

11. How Farmers Got Economic Justice
✤ Farmers faced chronic market failure for decades,
(“lack of price responsiveness”).!
✤ When things got even worse in the crisis of Great
Depression the Farm Bill was invented.!
✤ During the crisis of World War II, farm program
market management was used as a non-spending
economic stimulus, and Price Floors were raised to
achieve 100% of parity.

12. USDA paid out loans, (costs,) and later received principle & interest or sold in the market (receipts).
Market Management Made Money for USDA
Farmers got crop loans, paid off loans, paid interest.

13. Democrats did much better.
New Deal Farm Programs Managed Supply
Republicans repeatedly mismanaged supply management.

14. Republican mismanagement was costly to the revolving fund.
Republican Mismanagement Cost $
With oversupply and as Price Floors were lowered, USDA sold (later) at a loss.

15. Next slide shows increases in income, equity and profitability, decreases in debt from New Deal farm programs.!
The figures for Return on Equity are comparable to agribusiness levels.
Impacts: $1.2Trillion More for Farms
Farmers gained a parity with the big agribusiness companies as they paid farmers fairly.

17. Without adequate Supply Management and minimum farm Price Floors, the farm economy is usually a disaster.
Parity: A Measure of Economic Justice
Color coding: Here we see the time periods, the larger context. Omitted from the podcast.

18. The parity years of the Democratic Party New Deal were a rare time of economic justice for farmers. During the 1980s
Farm Crisis Harkin co-sponsored two farm bill proposals featuring adequate Price Floors and Supply Management.
Part 2: Tom Harkin’s Farm BillWork
During the 1980s Harkin proposed to restore and update the farm programs of the New Deal.

19. Harkin-Gephardt: https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/09/family-farm-act-of-1987/
Harkin Bills: Developed by Farmers
Harkin’s bills were studied by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, FAPRI.!
Harkin-Alexander: https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/10/the-farm-policy-reform-act-of-1985/

20. Harkin’s bill was much better than the 1981 Farm Bill that led to the farm crisis, and much better
than the Republican Proposal that was passed in 1985. See next charts.
Harkin-Alexander: Plant Less
The Farm Policy Reform Act, 1985, improved Supply Management.

21. Supply management works! Fewer acres leads to fewer bushels, higher prices, more income!
Harkin-Alexander: Less Carry Over
The Farm Policy Reform Act would have fixed the oversupply problem.

22. I added equity figures to FAPRI data. This is similar to USDA-ERS Rate of Return on Equity from Current Income.
Harkin-Alexander: Greater Profitability
Farm Policy Reform Act: Double digits, more like agribusiness, instead of low single digits.

23. Not mentioned during podcast: Harkin proposed to update & adequately restore the core programs of the New Deal,!
while Republicans made farm programs worse, leading to increased foreclosures. FAPRI 2-87.
Harkin-GephardtVs. Republican 85 Farm Bill
The Family Farm Act would have ended the farm crisis. The Republicans failed to fix it.

24. Then see how Republicans also look on farm exports. See next slide. FAPRI 2-87.
Harkin-Gephardt: No Subsidies are Needed
Government costs are much less when no subsidies are needed. Republicans = Big Spenders.

25. With Harkin-Gephardt, we export much less, but make a profit on it above full costs. Here I added actual cost of
production data to the FAPRI (baseline/projection) data. 1988 was a major drought year, affecting the data.
Harkin: Export Profits! Republicans: Subsidize Foreigners.
Reagan’s 85 Farm Bill subsidized the Soviet Union with below cost grains.

26. 01
FAPRI Study of Harkin-Gephardt
Grazing: An Antidote to CAFOs & the Destruction of Sustainability

27. Harkin led numerous Democrats to take the same position, including those here in Iowa, and those on the Ag Committees.
Republican Farm Bills are now labeled “bi-partisan.” Since then Iowa Democrats have increasingly lost the rural vote.
Part 3: “The Harkin Compromise”
After becoming chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee in 2001, Harkin
switched sides on the Farm Bill, joining Republicans and rejecting his earlier work.

28. Farmers continued to lose livestock and the sustainable livestock crops. So they lost the livestock option, to raise more
when grain prices were low. Farmers lost the sustainable crop rotation option, to diversify when input costs are high.
1996 Farm Bill: “Freedom to Fail”
Harkin Rejected the 1996 Farm Bill, “Freedom to Farm,” which ended the remaining, much reduced,
New Deal farm programs. Farmers called it “Freedom to Fail.” It further reduced farmers freedom.

29. As Farmers & Harkin Predicted:
’Freedom to Fail’ Immediately Failed
✤ Republicans ended the remaining Supply Management Programs in the
1996 Farm Bill.!
✤ Republicans provided “transition subsidies, 1996-2001, but called for
also ending all farm subsidies in 2002.!
✤ The bill failed almost immediately, as seen on the previous charts.!
✤ Congress passed 4 emergency farm bills in 4 years, 1998, 1999, 2000,
2001.!
✤ Congress added a lot of subsidies to stop it all from snowballing like
the 1980s, but refused to restore Supply Management & Price Floors.

30. “Freedom to Farm,” was a return to Hooverism, but with subsidies.
Parity Ratios continued downward.
The white area on the right shows what happened starting in 1996.

31. Profitability: Return on Equity Stayed Low
Compare slide 22, where ROE is projected to rise to double digits under Harkin-Alexander.

32. 2001: Harkin Became Senate Ag Chair
Harkin’s Narrative Changed
✤ Harkin in Podcast: “What I would be proposing would be that we use the federal
government to support and sustain small, less intensive, maybe more organic or
more healthful types of food production systems.” !
✤ “…But we're so locked into mono agriculture, corn and beans…” , “…It’s hurting
us in water quality and I think health….” “It has to do with our food production
system and distribution. It has to do with the overabundance of starches, fats, and
sugars that people eat. And again, that goes back to what are we growing? Corn
for high fructose corn syrup, which is in everything.”!
✤ “But I was able to put the first fresh fruit and vegetable snack program in for
schools. And we did it on an experimental basis. We took four or five states….”!
✤ “We lost... control and we had a new different secretary of agriculture come in.
And their philosophy was, again, corn and beans and wheat and cotton, rice, that
type of sugar.“

33. 2000s: Harkin Shifted to Subsidy Issue,
NOT Price Floors & Supply Reductions
✤ Harkin: “First thing that hit me was how agriculture was geared towards these
program crops and how they were subsidized. The bigger you are, the more you got. ”!
✤ “…What really got to me early on on agriculture was the power of the big
commodities, the corn lobby, the wheat lobby, the sugar, rice, and at that time,
tobacco…. But just the power that they had to basically get what they wanted first in
the agriculture bill, and then what might be left for others, like fruits and vegetables or
beginning farmer programs or the whole organic movement.” !
✤ “I represented Southwest Iowa…. And people were shifting at that time from cow-calf
herds grazing, that type of thing, to growing more corn and beans because that was the
big push. But on hilly ground, that's highly erodible. So... We began programs for
things like building terraces….”!
✤ “We subsidized farmers for what they grew, program crops, and how much they grew.”

34. Note Harkin’s New Generalizations
✤ “agriculture was geared towards these program crops”!
✤ “the power of the big commodities, the corn lobby, the wheat
lobby, the sugar, rice, and at that time, tobacco…. But just the
power that they had to basically get what they wanted…” !
✤ “Southwest Iowa…. people were shifting at that time from
cow-calf herds grazing, to growing more corn and beans
because that was the big push.!
✤ “We subsidized farmers for what they grew, program crops,
and how much they grew.”

35. 01
Harkin’s Vs. Farmers’
Generalizations Realities
✤ “agriculture … geared towards …
program crops”!
✤ “the power of the big commodities,
the corn lobby, the wheat lobby, the
sugar, rice, and at that time, tobacco….
to basically get what they wanted…” !
✤ “shifting … from cow-calf herds,
grazing, to growing more corn and
beans … the big push.!
✤ “We subsidized farmers for what they
grew, program crops, and how much
they grew.”
✤ Price Floors were lowered, prices fell,
more and more.!
✤ Agribusiness lobbied against farmers,
to lower farm prices for corn, wheat,
sugar, rice, tobacco., to end supply
management!
✤ Cheap prices forced farms to subsidize
CAFOs. Farms lost livestock &
poultry, pasture, hay & oats.!
✤ Subsidies did not make up for lower
prices. Farmers got more blame, and
oversupply more for less money.

36. https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/farm-bill-net-impacts-which-state-is-the-biggest-loser
Iowa: The Biggest Farm Bill Loser
Net Impacts: Iowa gets almost the most subsidies, but has the biggest reductions.

37. This is based upon a parity standard (reductions 8x bigger than subsidies). A lesser standard could show 6x bigger, 4x
bigger, etc. https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/farm-bill-net-impacts-which-state-is-the-biggest-loser
Corn Belt: The Biggest Farm Bill Loser
Net Impacts: Iowa gets almost the most subsidies, but has the biggest reductions.

38. This is based upon a parity standard of fairness. A lesser standard would also show huge net reductions.
Corn Reductions + Subsidies
Net Impacts: Corn gets the most subsidies, but has the biggest reductions by far.

39. Ignoring Agribusiness, Blaming Farmers
✤ Harkin: “if you were a big farmer, you got more support.
Therefore, you got more money and you could outbid
other people for your neighbor's land.… Well, now you
got even more. You got even more subsidies. So you could
bid and buy even more land. And it just became a black
hole of sucking in more and more money so farmers could
get bigger and bigger and bigger. And you see what we
wound up with today. Huge monoculture farms.”!
✤ False: Evidence is clear. Penalization is what happened.

40. Yes, this chart shows the question. Here’s a series of slides featuring 4 farm sizes to explain the issue.
Harkin Lacks Context Re. Big Farms Got More
Podcast: Harkin gives no real answer as to why bigger farms got more “support & subsidies.”

41. This is all that Harkin sees, (describes and interprets).
The 4 Farm Sizes, in Acres
Average subsidies are computed based on data from 1981-2005.

42. Here I show the larger context that Harkin omits in the 21st century.
Average Production: 3 Program Crops
The subsidies are computed based upon these crops.

43. Harkin questions why subsidies would be added to market income.
Here’s the Market Income
For each chart, larger figures are multiplied x10, x10, x10.

44. Note that these full economic costs for 1981-2005 are bigger than market income!
Missing from Harkin’s Analysis: Costs
Missing: the fact that the bigger the farm, the bigger the costs.

45. Corn prices were also below full costs every year, 2014-2020. Similar for other crops. Harkin does not consider this.!
Harkin’s 2 major farm justice proposals, (discussed farther below,) were designed to prevent this. Not mentioned.
1981-2005: 8 Crops Below Full Costs
Losses per acres x acres for 8 crops, added together: below full costs every year 1981-2006, except 1996.

46. What are USDA-ERS Full Costs?
✤ USDA’s Economic Research Service calculates “Commodity
Costs and Returns” for both “Operating Costs” and what I call
“Full Costs,” which are labeled as “Economic Costs” or “Total
Costs Listed” for each crop examined.!
✤ The Full Costs include things like a portion of the general farm
overhead and “Unpaid Labor,” a reasonable income for the
farmer’s labor and management in growing that crop.!
✤ So after these costs are included, how much is left over as a
return on a farmer’s investments in land, machinery and
facilities, such as for growing the specific crop.

47. Ask Harkin: should a small, part-time farm get a subsidy like a full-time farm?
Net Results: 4 Sizes of Need
You certainly can’t live on $72 or $720, or even $7,200. Farms had to get larger to survive.

48. The Bigger the Farm,
the Bigger the Reduction
✤ Podcast: give more to small farms and acreages, less to
bigger farms.!
✤ “What we advocated was that for the first so many bushels (or pounds, in case
of cotton,) you would get a very high support price…. For the next increment
… you would get less of a support price. For the next increment, you'd get
even less until there was a point where you produced so much, you didn't get
any support beyond that.”!
✤ Harkin makes no mention of farmers subsidizing
agribusiness & CAFOs with cheap, below cost grains.!
✤ Podcast: have big farms subsidize CAFOs & Agribusiness? Utterly absurd!

49. Census Data Contradicts Big Farm Claims
This is a measure of profitability. Farm sizes are shown in acres.

50. Here I again added full cost figures into FAPRI’s computations of crop income to get “net value.”
1980s: Harkin Addressed the Problem
Podcast & 2000s: Harkin forgets about the Republican farm crisis, turns against farmers.

51. Many agribusiness categories are 800-1,300 times bigger, & far more profitable, than farmers.!
1980s: Harkin was top leader in addressing this problem. Podcast: Harkin blames farmers.
Corn/Soybean C-4 Shares: TeenyTiny
Compared to Agribusiness (C-4 60%+)
Farms Vs. Agribusiness: Today Harkin ignores the dinosaur in the room. For 70
decades, Republican Farm Bills increasingly made farms subsidize agribusiness.

52. Soybeans received no “Deficiency Payment” subsidies & had no supply reductions, no acreage set asides.!
Tinkering with yellow subsidies, (amount of yellow above red line,) fixes nothing!
Podcast: Farm Bills Supported Soybeans?
Soybean Price Floors were reduced and ended. Subsidies started in 1998.

53. 1980s: Harkin-Gephardt: No Subsidies needed. Harkin knew that soybeans were penalized. So big farms
received no soybean subsidies. Podcast: Harkin claims soybeans have been huge beneficiaries.
85 Farm Bill: No Soybean Subsidies
Harkin Gephardt: Harkin supported higher soybean Price Floors.

54. Hardly anyone knows this. Harkin surely does NOT know this. (Data is 1995-2010.) !
https://znetwork.org/zblogs/most-ewg-subsidy-recipients-are-too-tiny-to-be-farmers-by-brad-wilson/
EWG Farm Subsidy Database Misleads
2/3 of Subsidy Recipients: less than 11% of Full Time. Half are Less than 3.3% of Full Time!

55. Farmers have massively subsidized agribusiness buyers by trillions of dollars, 1953-2025.
1980s: AgBiz Profits Subsidized by Iowa Farm Losses
Harkin now blames big farms that were going broke, not huge, rich agribusinesses.

56. 1985 Farm Bill: the worst in history up to that point! !
But better than any more recent farm bill, including those Harkin touts.
1984: Iowa ROE = 32% Below Zero!
Huge profits for agribusiness buyers. Republicans lowered Price Floors a lot!

57. Podcast: No mentioned that, unlike Republicans, Harkin Recognized the Farm
Crisis and proposed farm bill reforms to fix it.
1984: Iowa’s Farm ROE 32% Below 0
1984: Republicans denied the Farm Crisis, even as Iowa’s ROE fell way below zero.

58. Iowa Farmers: Subsidized up to low single digits ROE. Podcast: Harkin criticizes
farmers, not agribusiness, an atrocious strategy for Democratic candidates.
InsuranceVs. Farms: Both are Subsidized
Insurance: Subsidized up to 18% Returns on Equity when 12% was “reasonable.”

59. 1996 Farm Bill: “Freedom to Fail.” The bill immediately failed, & Congress passed 4 emergency farm bills in 4 years.
1980s: Harkin Fought to Raise Price Floors
1996: Republicans (pres. Clinton) ended supply management programs. Harkin Opposed it.

60. Farm & Food Subsidies, SNAP/(Food Stamps)
✤ Subsidies alone provide invalid logic and evidence regarding Food & Farm
impacts. !
✤ Food Subsidy Recipients get the lions share of Farm Bill money. That doesn’t
prove that they are winners.!
✤ The larger economic context must be considered: Low Minimum Wage,
($5/hr by 2025 in 2009 $,) lack of adequate labor laws, lack of fair trade,
lack of adequate antitrust policies and enforcement, lack of full
employment policies and programs.!
✤ People are still hungry.!
✤ Same need for valid logic and evidence applies to farmers, as I’ve shown for
the 4 farm sizes. Market reductions provide a larger context for subsidies.

61. Harkin today : “… The federal government … actually encouraged and promoted farms to get bigger.” False!!
Harkin leaves out the bigger factor: Republicans reduced and ended Price Floor programs. 1980s: he opposed it.
Not Mentioned: Farms Got Less & Less
Price Floors were reduced & ended, lowering farm prices: With Subsidies, farms still got less.

62. Low, reduced income is not an incentive.
Price Floors reduced: Incomes Fell
Because of chronic market failure, prices and incomes fell when Price Floors were reduced/ended.

63. Lower income is NOT an incentive!
1980-2005: Corn/Soybeans, + Subsidies, Got Less
No subsidies are counted for hay, milk, beef cattle & hogs.

64. 1980-2005: All of these farm enterprises declined.
Rice/Wheat/Cotton + Subsidies, Got Less
It’s false to claim that the program crops had an incentive from the government.

65. 01

66. Fruits &Vegetables: Also in Farm Programs
✤ Harkin: “…We need to shift some of our support, you know, program crops.
Well, you know, fruits and vegetables were never a program crop.” False.!
✤ Harkin: “…When I was chair of the Ag Committee in the Senate, for the first
time, we involved fruits and vegetables.” False.!
✤ For decades there have been Fruit and Vegetable farm programs: Market
Order and Market Agreement programs.!
✤ 45 Fruits and Vegetables have fared better than corn, soybeans, wheat,
cotton and rice, even counting subsidies only for the latter crops, but all
crops declined.!
✤ See next slides.

67. USDA historians explain this in “History of Agricultural Price-Support and Adjustment Programs, 1933-84.”!
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT10842840/PDF
New Deal Helped Fruits &Vegetables
There were dozens of Market Agreement/Market Order programs for fruits and vegetables.

68. See long term examples for two of these categories in next two charts.
Fruits &Vegetables Fared Better, notWorse
All crops were reduced due to farm program reductions. Fruits & Vegetables were reduced less.

69. See the data here. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/subsidized-crops-vs-vegetables-pt-i/239258118 !
“Incentives” as prices fell, more and more for all, favor vegetables.
Fresh & ProcessingVegetables Fared Better
Not counting subsidies, except for the 5 crops in blue.

70. See the data here. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/subsidized-crops-vs-fruits-pt-2/239258054 !
Again, Incentives for more production favored fruits over the 5 subsidized crops in blue.
Fresh & Processing Fruits Fared Better
Even not counting any subsidies, except for the 5 crops in blue.

71. Podcast: Harkin is concerned about farms getting subsidies after reductions, not giant
CAFO companies who have no reductions, yet get subsidized by farms.
Cheap grain: Farms Subsidized Hog CAFOs
Smithfield alone received $2.5 Billion from farmers, just for 1997-2005.

72. S
Cheap grain: Farms Subsidized Poultry CAFOs
c

73. Podcast: “Southwest Iowa shifting … from cow-calf herds, grazing…, to growing more corn
and beans because that was the big push.” No, it was the penalization of corn and beans.
Iowa Farms Lost Livestock to CAFOs
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-decline-of-farming-in-iowa-pt-1pdf/251892145

74. As we’ve seen, this was not caused by paying subsidies to compensate for massive reductions.!
https://familyfarmjustice.me/2022/07/31/you-cant-fix-sustainability-without-justice/
Systemic Environmental Damage
Penalizing crop farming to subsidize CAFOs destroyed sustainable crop rotations.

75. Multi-trillions in penalization led less labor for diversity, more off-farm capital for inputs.
Lower Income: More Off FarmWork
Which farmers survived the massive penalization? Those with off-farm work.

76. The American Dream has been stolen from Iowa farm families, and those across the U.S., in
order to subsidize (U.S. and foreign) agribusiness. Republicans led these efforts for decades.
Systemic PenalizationVs.Young Farmers
This impact from multi-trillions in reductions far exceeds proposed beginning farmer subsidies.

77. Farming has morphed toward surviving through tax write-offs for non-farm income.
Systemic Penalization: Survivors Need Off-Farm Income
Tax Loss Farming is fostered: the richer you are, the bigger tax subsidy per acre.

78. Conclusion
✤ Part 1: 1933-1952: The Democratic New Deal: saved farmers from the Great Depression
and served as a non-spending economic stimulus for fighting World War II. !
✤ Part 2: 1980s: During the 1980s and 1990s, Tom Harkin worked to restore & update
New Deal Farm Programs to save farmers from the snowballing of the chronic farm
crisis. Research on his proposals found many incredible results for agriculture.!
✤ Part 3: 2000s: When Harkin became Senate Ag Chair in 2001, he abandoned the
Democratic Party’s New Deal approach, to instead try to make subsidies greener. With
no Price Floors and Supply Management “the Harkin Compromise” maintained the
cheapest of cheap farm prices for the subsidization, (by farmers,) of CAFOs, junk food,
and export dumpers, (for losing money on farm exports, on sales out of Iowa, out of
Iowa’s rural communities, and off of Iowa’s farms. !
✤ Political Implications: Many traumatized & bashed farmers who are offered no hope
end up voting for nihilistic Republicans. Democrats lose the rural vote.

79. Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement:
Sources Regarding Farm Policy
✤ It is “focused on the main policy areas that shaped Senator Tom Harkin’s career: people with
disabilities, retirement security, and wellness and nutrition.” Not mentioning agriculture.!
✤ Later it is mentioned. “Sen. Harkin’s legacy policy priorities have included federal farm
policy …,” and the Institute has featured the following projects.!
✤ Conference: “Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health,” 9/25/24 to
9/26/24, Drake University. Very little was said about Harkin’s legacy of farm justice.!
✤ Accompanying book: James Merchant and Robert Martin, eds., “Industrial Farm Animal
Production, the Environment, and Public Health,” 9/24/24. The book is weak on Harkin’s
legacy of trying to save farmers from the massive 1980s farm crisis, the way Democrats did
during the New Deal.!
✤ Podcast: Adam Shriver, Canary in the Cornfield. Episode 1 is what I have reviewed here.!
✤ Adam Shriver, “Canary in a Cornfield Episode #1 With Tom Harkin (Full Episode),” https://
canaryinacornfield.substack.com/p/canary-in-a-cornfield-episode-1-with, (includes transcript). !