In 2023, existing legislation providing billions in US government dollars to agricultural producers will expire. The policy underlying this legislation imposes serious harms on the agriculture industry and the nation while doing little to feed the United States healthy food.
Because of those harms, there is bipartisan support in the United States for reforming this policy by reducing financial support to producers. Those reforms would have demonstrable benefits for the environment, the economy, and the agriculture industry itself. Yet, despite the consensus for reform and the benefits that would result, it has been hard to achieve meaningful reform of the government’s financial support of the industry due to several political obstacles. In deciding how to achieve and implement reform, the United States can learn valuable lessons from Australia, which successfully transitioned its agriculture industry away from government dependence using a group of temporary, government-funded programs aimed at assisting farmers.
This Article proposes a plan for reducing agricultural funding in the United States and a path to achieving that reduction by adopting a program of assistance measures modeled on those used by Australia. First, the Article proposes a plan for reducing farm subsidies that synthesizes and expands on prior proposals for piecemeal changes to the current funding policy. Second, it proposes a path to achieving this plan by adopting a group of temporary assistance measures based on ones used by Australia. Adopting this program of assistance measures would both improve the outcomes of the industry in transitioning away from government dependence and help to overcome political opposition to reducing government financial support of the industry.
Although Australia is often pointed to as an example of a country that successfully reduced its agricultural funding, this Article is the first to recommend that the United States use Australia’s assistance measures as a template. After closely analyzing Australia’s successful reform, the Article recommends specific assistance measures for the United States, with modifications and improvements based on insights gained from Australia’s experience and differences in the two nations’ agriculture industries.
This Article’s proposal would help US policymakers to reduce the nation’s funding of the agriculture industry’s destructive behavior by implementing gradual reform that supports the industry’s adjustment to a freer market with beneficial temporary assistance.
