The type of government payment or even federal crop insurance farms receive depend on the nature of the program themselves.  And further illustration of this comes from the agriculture department's latest study of Diverse Family Farms.  Research Economist, Christine Whitt, said one example from the study covering all of 2018.

 

These conservation reserve program payments are typically targeted towards taking environmentally sensitive land out of production.  And so majority of these payments are going towards retirement, off farm occupation, and low sale farms. So a lot of these farms aren't doing the high commodity production; they're getting these program payments.

Other findings show 76% of commodity related program payments went to moderate sales, mid-sized, and large family farms.  As for working lands conservation payments, the breakdown was fairy even among large, mid-size, and small family farms.

 

 

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