WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued two reports revealing details of the financial assistance provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to agricultural producers. The first report focused on USDA financial assistance to the largest livestock feeding operations from 2018 to 2023, and the second report focused on the financial assistance provided by USDA to all agricultural producers between 2019 and 2023.

U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) requested these GAO reports in December 2021. Booker and Gillibrand are members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

“These GAO reports highlight the glaring unfairness of our federal agriculture assistance programs,” said Senator Booker. “It’s unacceptable that mega-farms are receiving the majority of this federal financial assistance, while small farmers are left with pennies. Equally troubling is the fact that less than five percent of this USDA funding is going to support farmers growing fruits and vegetables. Instead, USDA is primarily subsidizing the growth of commodity crops used to produce the ultra-processed foods that are making Americans sick. We must commit to reforming our agricultural assistance programs in the upcoming Farm Bill.”

The comprehensive GAO reports include the following toplines: 

  1. Out of $161 billion dollars of financial assistance provided by USDA between 2019 and 2023, only $8.1 billion went to farmers growing fruits and vegetables – just 5 percent.
  2. The 10,000 largest factory farms received $12.1 billion between 2018 and 2023, or an average of $1.2 million of financial assistance per operation.  
  3. Between 2019 and 2023: 
    1. The top 7% of producers each received an average of approximately $272,000 each year (the bottom 93% received just $12,000 each year). 
    2. The top 7% of producers received 63% of all financial assistance
    3. More than half of all producers received no financial assistance at all. 
    4. Over half of all producers who did receive funds received an average of less than $2,800 a year. 
  1. The top 10 individual agricultural producers received about $18 million annually on average. 
  2. The top 100 individual agricultural producers received about $6 million per year. 
  3. One individual producer received $215.2 million in one year (2022). 
  4. In 2018 large factory farms received less than $4 million in insurance subsidies; in 2022 and 2023 these factory farms received over $400 million per year in insurance subsidies. 

The full text of the reports can be found here and here.