This paper is an historical analysis of how global pressures and aspirations have affected US farm bill debates over time, from the first farm bill in 1933 to the current debates over a 2018 farm bill. It focuses in particular on how nationalist and patriotic arguments have been used to support the USA's desired place in global agricultural markets over time. For example, debates over the 2008 farm bill reflected strong international concerns around both trade and energy, with early discussion focusing on keeping the USA ‘competitive’ as an agricultural exporter alongside emerging agricultural powerhouses, and later debates focusing on increasing domestic bioenergy production to ‘protect’ the USA from what were seen as risky energy imports. In other words, debates over trade and energy in 2008 provide insight into how stakeholders positioned the USA with respect to the rest of the world and how that positioning changed over the course of debates. But such questions about the USA's global aspirations—whether to maximize US production for export or protect US agriculture from global rivals—have been part of the farm bill since its earliest days. This analysis will examine how concerns over such national agricultural prominence in a globalizing context have played into and influenced the contours of domestic farm policy over time, with implications for the 2018 farm bill debates.

As the 2018 farm bill approaches, some important trends have emerged regarding the policy preferences of different commodity producers. While some farm organizations like the American Farm Bureau advocate for expanding free trade, other groups argue for more trade protections and even greater support from the federal government. This paper examines the global context that shapes such divergent policy positions. I argue that global demand has expanded for particular commodities (especially, feed grains and meat), leading producers of those commodities to push for free trade and weaker political regulations of agriculture. At the same time, however, greater liberalization over the past 25 years has contributed to greater competition for some commodities, such as wheat. Liberalization in the world economy has also contributed to greater market instability, especially in terms of prices and production. This instability and increased competition have pushed some commodity producers to favor national regulations and trade protections for agriculture. Focusing corn, soybeans and wheat, I argue that these three aspects of the global context—global demand, international competition and price instability—shape the policy preferences of US producers regarding the 2018 farm bill. I draw on statistics from the United States Department of Agriculture and Food and Agriculture Organization to illustrate these aspects of the global context.

Agricultural commodity ‘dumping’ is the practice of exporting commodities at prices below the cost of production. Dumping cheats farmers of a fair return for their work. It cheats both the farmers in the USA who are paid below cost, and the farmers abroad whose crops compete with US exports in markets distorted by dumping. And dumping shortchanges the ecosystems upon which humanity depends for its survival. Neo-classical economics holds that when prices are low, suppliers will produce less. The persistence of dumping in the US agricultural commodity sector defies that assumption. In trade circles, where the problem is acknowledged to an extent, dumping is explained as a result of government subsidies. The authors argue that the dumping numbers provided by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy suggest this explanation is at best partial. They look at definitions of dumping, and explanations for how it arises and why it persists, in defiance of expectations that markets are self-correcting.

Nearly two decades into the 21st century, we revisit the topic of changes in the US agricultural system. We focus on trends in structure, technology and policy, and on the increasing influence of consumer preferences on this system, particularly for organic agriculture and local and regional foods. We examine technological innovations in the 21st century, including biotechnology, precision agriculture and indoor farming. Within overall trends toward consolidation, we identify an increasing number of vegetable farms and greenhouse operations, accompanied by a decrease in average size of those operations. We note the shift away from price support toward greater reliance on risk management in farm policy, and also track the impact of food movement trends on recent farm bills. While farm bill policies continue to focus on conventional field crop agriculture, some trends—expanded crop insurance, conservation program support and spending on federal data collection, research and community-based grants, for example—have begun to incorporate the growing movement toward organic, local and regional food systems into the mainstream of US agricultural production and policy.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) aims to prevent obesity and chronic disease among SNAP-eligible families by facilitating healthy eating and active living. This study aimed to capture the voices of California SNAP-Ed eligible parents to inform program planners of their challenges in feeding their families, their available supports and priorities for intervention. We conducted eight focus groups with 55 participants across five counties in California from May through August 2017. Trained researchers used Dedoose to code and analyze data for substantive themes and overarching findings.Ten key findings and 4 additional findings were identified. Participants experience multiple challenges, primarily inadequate income and limited access to high quality, affordable healthy food contrasted with easy access to affordable unhealthy food. Despite efforts to manage food resources, most struggle to afford adequate diets. Employed parents confront a particularly challenging dual poverty of money and time. Many parents report feeling guilt related to feeding their children. Participants appreciate available programs and services and suggest increasing community input; providing sustainable programs; lowering the cost of and improving access to healthy food; reducing access to unhealthy food; modifying food assistance efforts; and improving nutrition education and promotion. Overall, low-income parents in California struggle to feed their families the way they would like. Participants generally understand what to feed their children, but struggle with how to do it, perceiving their circumstances and environments as inhospitable to healthy eating. Participants' suggestions can help SNAP-Ed programs and other efforts better support families' needs.

The former Deputy Administrator of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP) nutrition assistance program summarizes her experiences as the lead policy official for the program during the Great Recession under President Obama, specifying observations on how immigration impacts SNAP access for SNAP-eligible clients.

This article makes the case that the legacy of institutional racism by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is connected to the encroachment of the invasive species Juniperus virginiana (eastern red cedar) on farming land. Red cedar's encroachment impacts Black farmers disproportionately in Oklahoma, even as it undermines broader USDA conservation goals and ability to adapt to climate change. As such, this case study illustrates the shortcomings of Farm Bill Conservation Title programs to address ecological issues across the landscape—shortcomings that hinder farmers' ability to carry out long-term adaptation and mitigate risks. Conversely, we show how the work of Oklahoma Black Historical Research Project, Inc. and the Rural Coalition has been vital allies in Black farmers inter-related struggles against racial injustice and red cedar. Thus, we argue community-based organizations have a pivotal, but under-supported, role to play in the shaping and application of farm bill programs and funds.

The 2018 farm bill is the latest in a history that dates to 1933. Commodity assistance is the only program in all farm bills, but with evolutionary changes. Current farm commodity programs largely make payments to farms, a stark contrast to the 1930s when they limited supply, put a floor under market price, and dampened price increases via public stocks. Crop insurance, which began as an experimental pilot program in 1938, now has its own farm bill title. Almost all commodity and insurance programs have provided assistance based on a calculation specific to an individual commodity's price and/or yield. However, an evolutionary change to whole farm commodity programs may be in its infant stages. They provide assistance for variation in a farm's aggregate revenue across multiple crops. Whole farm experiments currently exist in both the commodity and crop insurance titles. Analysis of a whole farm commodity program finds that its payments differ by year from actual payments made by current commodity programs and are smaller in total.

Federal food assistance in the USA is an agglomeration of programs, the legacy of charitable and needs-based approaches that have been in place since the 1930s. Moving toward a rights-based approach would overcome many of the problems of these programs, such as the stigma attached to receiving assistance, the fragmentation of different programs with different eligibilities and the disconnect between monitoring and strategies to reduce food insecurity. Although the USA has not accepted its obligations to respect, protect, promote and fulfill the right to adequate food and nutrition, steps can be taken regardless toward a rights-based approach at the federal, state and municipal levels. With federal recognition of the right to adequate food and nutrition and incorporation within the Nutrition Title, however, a complete reshaping of federal food policy would be possible.

Molly Anderson's vision of making US federal food assistance rights-based is a powerful and strategic call for justice. Let us expand it to a call for human rights-based sustainable food system development at the national and local level. International human rights frameworks provide strategic and still-evolving tools to support social justice as well as experienced global networks and partners. To advance that potential, we need to fire up broad-scale human rights and human right to adequate food and nutrition education and training.

US farmers and ranchers have actively pursued markets in foreign countries for their products since the 1970s. This priority was reflected by the US Congress in 1978 enacting the first set of laws establishing programs aimed at promoting US agricultural exports. In 1986, the US government initiated its first trade negotiations, with the government of Canada, with the express goal of liberalizing access in that market to all US food and agricultural exports. Since that time, the US government has completed free trade agreements with 20 countries, six in DR-CAFTA, 13 in bilateral agreements and adding Mexico to create NAFTA. The US government also devotes considerable resources to detecting and combatting unfair barriers to trade, through informal channels as well as through WTO dispute settlements. However, these tools primarily focus on capturing larger slices of existing markets. To generate better returns, we need to focus more energy on efforts to generate increased demand in developing countries, by helping their agricultural economies prosper. Once those economies are growing, the other tools can be utilized.

Molly Anderson's argument that irrespective of the US refusal to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966) it is time for federal food assistance programs such as SNAP mandated through the Farm Bill to adopt a right to food and nutrition approach is foresighted and significant. As is Anne Bellow's succinct and equally powerful proposal for widening the debate to include a system's-based human rights approach to a National Food Plan. Their timely advocacy is compelling given the few influential US food policy voices speaking from a food justice perspective about the dysfunctional industrial food system and the failure of the Federal Government to ensure access to healthy food and food security for all.

For most economic goods market participants are ‘not forced to make a deal.’ They can walk away, perhaps permanently, or revisit a transaction later if the terms of trade are more to their liking. That is not the case for food. It is a biological necessity to participate in the food market. This coercive property of food demand and other unique market characteristics make the agricultural sector very unresponsive to changes in price and hence—in contrast to textbook expectations—its ability to quickly self-correct. In recent decades agricultural policy legislation has not taken into account the root causes of agriculture's chronic price and income problems. As a result, it has been largely ineffective and unnecessarily expensive. We argue in this paper that a well-designed supply management program can take agriculture's unique characteristics into account in a way that benefits farmers, consumers and the public as a whole.