Farm Programs

The Agriculture Department's income support payments, commonly referred to as deficiency payments, are intended to protect farmers' incomes when crop prices fall below set prices. GAO testified that payments to individual farms ranged from less than $100 to nearly $1.8 million. Most farms collected comparatively small amounts--about 75 percent of the 989,000 farms received payments of $5,000 or less. In contrast, fewer than one percent of the farms received payments of more than $100,000. Deficiency payments to farms averaged about $5,500. Average payments varied between commodities, with payments for rice and cotton among the largest at $31,200 and $10,300, respectively. Deficiency payments are concentrated among relatively few farms. Overall, about 54 percent of the payments went to about 10 percent of the farms.