Have you ever gone to the grocery store and wondered why the pack of fruits you wanted costs more than a bag of corn chips, a box of sugary cereal, and a large soda combined? Or why a pound of asparagus costs more than a pound of ground beef from a cow who had to be fed tens of thousands of pounds of corn?
How, exactly, are foods that are simply grown in a field then sold in their original, whole form more expensive than ultra-processed foods—for which food companies must combine crops, ship them to a factory, process them using advanced equipment, mix them with numerous complex additives, package them, and market them?
Here’s the answer: The crops that go into unhealthy ultra-processed foods, sodas, and factory-farmed meat are heavily subsidized by the U.S. government in Congress’ recurring Farm Bill, keeping them artificially cheap, while healthier produce is left behind.
Crops like wheat, soybeans, and corn have been staple crops for centuries. Traditionally, people relied on these crops to meet their basic caloric needs and avoid starvation, and they were consumed in less-processed forms than they are now. Producers of these three crops are the biggest recipients of federal subsidies today. Far from their original use, however, these crops now form the dirt-cheap basis of virtually all ultra-processed junk foods and are typically consumed with most or all of their nutrients stripped away.
Wheat is typically processed into white flour, a high-GI simple carb with essentially no nutritional value, then used to make things like sugary baked goods, white bread, and salty crackers. Soybeans are processed into, among other things, soybean oil, which is high in pro-inflammatory Omega-6 fats yet is used in staggering quantities as a frying oil and ingredient in ultra-processed foods (as well as paint and plastic). Corn, the most subsidized crop in America, is processed into, to name a few things, corn flour (same story as white flour), corn oil (same story as soybean oil), and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a uniquely harmful sweetener that is tied to insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and heart disease. Almost any junk food you can find contains the processed forms of one or more of these crops—especially corn.
Additionally, most factory-farmed livestock in the U.S. are fed a diet based on corn and other grains, with animal feed making up about 40 percent of total domestic corn consumption. This grain-based diet is far from the natural grass and forage-based diets of cows, pigs, and chickens, and it produces unhealthier animals. This in turn leads to meat, dairy, and eggs with poorer nutritional profiles, including significantly lower levels of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory Omega-3 fatty acids and significantly higher levels of saturated fats and pro-inflammatory Omega-6 fatty acids.
As I will mention frequently on this blog: ultra-processed foods, simple carbs, sugary drinks, factory-farmed meat, and other unhealthy staples of the American diet drive chronic illness and obesity and have earned us the lowest life expectancy among high-income countries. Whole foods like fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, are associated with a host of benefits and a longer, healthier life, and are severely underconsumed.
Nevertheless, an estimated 70% of payments from the Farm Bills’ main agricultural subsidy programs (ARC, PLC, and federal crop insurance) will have flowed to just corn, soybean, and wheat producers from 2017 to 2027. From 1995 to 2020, corn subsidies alone totaled over $116 billion, more than all fruits and vegetables combined.
In fact, “specialty crops,” a group containing all fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts, accounted for only 17% of the federal crop insurance portfolio in 2017. By distributing subsidies in this way, the U.S. government keeps the prices of ultra-processed foods, simple carbs, and factory-farmed meat and dairy artificially low while leaving producers of healthy foods like fruits and vegetables out to dry and keeping prices for healthy produce high.
So why does the government do this? The reason that the Farm Bill distributes subsidies so counterproductively has to do with both history and modern-day politics.
The Farm Bill originates from the Great Depression with the 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program. Initially designed to stabilize crop prices and protect farmers from going out of business, this law subsidized farmers for producing certain crops, independently of consumer demand or consumption. This bill was written at a time when food was much less abundant and staple crops drove the economy, and thus it prioritized grains like corn, soybeans, and wheat. The AAA has been updated every 5 years since its creation and is now referred to as the Farm Bill, and it has come to encompass direct payments to farmers, crop insurance, price and revenue support, and more. Despite these updates, it has failed to break from historical precedent and still greatly prioritizes traditional staple crops like the initial bill did.
Today, heavy lobbying encourages the continuation of this policy. Large industry groups reported over $500 million in lobbying on the Farm Bill and related policies between 2019 and 2023. Lobbying on agricultural policy tends to be dominated by those most interested in maintaining the profitable status quo.
As a result, the Farm Bill is lopsided towards large corporate operations rather than small farmers. For instance, in 2015, the combined bottom 80% of farm by crop sales received about the same total amount of ARC, PLC, and insurance subsidy payments as the top 2% of farms. In 2020, 2/3 of subsidy payments went to the largest 10% of farms.Even acre-by-acre, it’s unfair; in 2014, the top 2% of farms received an average subsidy of $50 per acre while the average per-acre subsidy for all farms was only $12.28.
So, as a result of the Farm Bill, small farmers of nutritious fruits and vegetables struggle to get by while large conglomerates receive billions in taxpayer dollars to grow grains like corn, soybeans, and wheat. These grains are then used to make artificially cheap ultra-processed foods, HFCS-filled sodas, and factory-farmed meat, while healthy whole foods like fruits and vegetables remain costlier. These relative prices encourage American consumers to buy more unhealthy foods and less whole foods, fueling chronic illness and obesity. That all sounds like quite a bad policy to me.
No country’s agricultural policy is perfect, and most countries don’t support healthy produce enough. However, U.S. farm policy stands out among high-income countries for the scale at which it encourages the production and consumption of unhealthy foods.
The next Farm Bill will come around later in 2025, and I don’t expect it to address these issues whatsoever. That means we need to keep on advocating for a healthier system.
References:
Congressional Research Service. Federal crop insurance: specialty crops. R45459 (2019).
Gunnars, K. (2019, December 4). What’s the difference between grass- and grain-fed beef? Healthline.
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