The relationship between international trade and trade policy and the Farm Bill is complex and largely indirect, but vital to the industry. The future of agricultural incomes in the United States will be shaped largely by trade prospects.

No one knows whether there will be a 2012 farm bill, but we do know that it there is one, nutrition programs -- food stamps, school lunches, WIC, etc. -- will take up the lion’s share of farm bill funding, well in excess of $90 billion a year. But is the funding serving the neediest Americans? Find out on Thursday at AEI.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 introduced many of the Farm Bill provisions that remain present today, including precursors to the current food and nutrition programs (FANPs). This policy served multiple purposes, including enhanced demand for farm products to alleviate low farm income and reduce agricultural surpluses, and enhanced food security and improved nutrition for the poor.

In the wake of the newly-released Ryan budget proposal, AEI agricultural economist Vincent Smith discusses the implications for agricultural subsidies and explains why more budget-cutting is imperative.

Widespread public support for direct outlays to a segment of society that now tends to be relatively wealthy may be waning.

A total of 15 different U.S. food and nutrition programs (FANPs) serve about one in four Americans at a current annual cost of almost $100 billion. Can the government actually improve our personal eating habits? Are these billions of dollars well-spent?

The dramatic fluctuations in world commodity markets in recent years caused an extended period of deep financial distress for US dairy farms, leading dairy farmers and other dairy interests to ask how dairy policy failed and how it can be fixed.

The US government has funded agricultural disaster aid programs for nearly a century, mainly on an ad hoc basis between 1970 and 2008. The new Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) program for crops is the budgetary and economic-efficiency elephant in the disaster aid policy room.