The past four years have been chaotic for US agriculture. Trade wars, initiated by the Don­ald Trump administration in 2017, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic have led to volatile domestic and international market conditions and considerable uncertainty about future prices and farm businesses’ financial situations.

The modern era of federal farm commodity subsidies began with the New Deal more than 80 years ago. At that time, a large fraction of American poverty was concentrated in rural and agricultural regions. Since then, subsidy programs, international trade measures, and commodity regulations have been repeatedly modified.