KNAPP: For real “farm aid”, go “free trade”

On August 6, the US Senate’s Agriculture Committee rejected the latest version of the federal government’s quinquennial “farm bill.” I say “quinquennial” because Congress normally passes this legislation every five years, but it’s still operating on the 2018 version and has been arguing on a new version since 2023.

SNAP dispute stalls the latest bill

The major hang-up this year seems to be over a Republican plan that would require state governments kick in for the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, aka “food stamps”). Democrats want a two-year delay on that requirement (most Americans don’t understand that SNAP is a welfare program for farmers, which is why it goes in the farm bill; feeding poor people is just a better-sounding excuse).

There’s also a set-to over the idea of “year-round E15,” under which gasoline with 15% ethanol could be sold year-round instead of only during certain months. That would mean bigger subsidies for corn farmers to produce stuff that isn’t food, pollutes the air, ruins older engines, and makes newer engines more expensive.

A New Deal program outlives its era

The “farm bill” concept is 93 years old, and it’s as bad an idea now, when only 1% of Americans work in agriculture, as it was in 1933’s first round of New Deal legislation, back when that number was 25%.

We keep getting better at producing more food with less labor, but apparently buried deep within the US Constitution there’s an amendment obligating American taxpayers and consumers to ensure that anyone whose great-grandfather wore overalls and drove a tractor gets to make a living and have a career doing the same thing. I can’t find it, but it must be in there somewhere, right? Otherwise, why does Congress spend more than $70 billion a year to make it so?

A case for tough love

I don’t hate farmers — I come from a farming family and grew up on a farm myself — but I do think that some tough love would do them good. Not just moral good, material good.

Taxpayer subsidies won’t change the fact that even as American consumers pay more for food, American farmers earn less for growing that food. The whole idea behind the “farm bill” — that politicians in Washington are, or ever could be — better than free markets at deciding what gets grown and sold — is nonsense.

Instead of a “farm bill” every five years, why not try five years of free trade?

Tariffs have shut farmers out of markets

For nearly a decade, US presidents (of both parties) have screwed American farmers out of access to foreign markets by putting tariffs on foreign crops coming in, triggering “retaliation.” US agricultural exports to China fell from $38 billion in 2022 to $8 billion in 2025. The US now runs a “trade deficit” in agriculture, importing more than it exports.

Ditch the “farm bill,” end the tariffs … and let’s eat.

Thomas Knapp

Website |  + postsBio

Thomas L. Knapp is the director and senior news analyst for the Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism. Knapp is a journalism veteran of over 35 years and a full-time libertarian writer, editor and publisher since 2000.

Knapp has been the publisher of Rational Review News Digest since 2003 and a former columnist for Antiwar.com.

• Thomas Knapp

  KNAPP: The political and personal case for Linux
• Thomas Knapp

  How the final few months of the Biden administration could be his most effective
• Thomas Knapp

  KNAPP: Make impeachment great again
• Thomas Knapp

  KNAPP: Bank collapses: Yes, it’s a taxpayer bailout