Federal crop insurance and commodity support programs
Premium subsidies and price supports paid to agricultural producers and insurers.
Sum of two lines from CBO's baseline: Federal Crop Insurance Corporation outlays ($11.9B) plus Commodity Credit Corporation price-support-program outlays ($3.7B, covering Price Loss Coverage, Agriculture Risk Coverage, marketing loans and dairy support), both FY2025. This is a poor single-year summary: the same baseline shows CCC price-support outlays alone jumping to $21.4B in FY2027 as the higher statutory reference prices enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) phase into payment calculations, taking the combined total to roughly $37B that year. Re-read this baseline's later editions before treating $15.6B as current.
Support is proportional to acreage and insured value, and payment limits are widely reported as avoidable through entity structuring. A large majority of payments flow to a minority of operations.
Structural reading
The clearest direct-spending analogue to the tax expenditures on this list, and structurally the most bipartisan: farm bills pass with large majorities from both parties because the benefits are geographically concentrated in a way that maps onto Senate representation rather than onto party. The two channels worth separating are that support scales with acreage rather than need, and that a distinct tranche flows to private insurers as administrative subsidy and underwriting gain, a concentrated benefit that never reaches a farm at all. The 2014 shift from direct payments to insurance-based support increased that second channel while making the overall cost less visible in budget documents.
Who gets it
The channels the benefit actually flows through, described by asset position, entity form and form of return. Never by named individuals.
Cost split by the concentration score. That score is a judgement rather than a published figure, so treat this as the scale of the split, not an audited allocation.
- Large-acreage operations
Because support scales with insured acres and production, payments concentrate among the largest operations rather than the smallest.
- Approved insurance providers
Private insurers receive administrative and operating subsidies plus underwriting gain sharing, a concentrated benefit distinct from anything reaching producers.
- Landowners via rent capitalisation
A substantial share of support capitalises into farmland rents and values, transferring benefit from operators to landowners, who are frequently not the farmers.
Who pays
General taxpayers, and consumers where price supports raise commodity costs.
Sector aggregate.
This transfer follows a general pattern, asymmetric organisation, sustained expert attention, and scheduled expiry dates.
How rent-seeking works →Legislative history and accountability
Enacting statutes, major amendments, recorded votes with party breakdown, and live reform proposals.
Enabling legislation
- Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1980P.L. 96-365Sep 26, 1980
Established the modern public-private crop insurance structure with federally subsidised premiums delivered through private insurers.
BipartisanPassed with support from both parties. No separate roll call on this provision is recorded here. unverified
Major amendment
- Agricultural Act of 2014P.L. 113-79Feb 7, 2014
Ended direct payments and shifted support toward insurance-based programs, increasing the share of support flowing through private insurers.
houseJan 29, 2014· Agreed to, 251-166Who voted which way: full roll callDemocratic89 yea103 nay46% yeaRepublican162 yea63 nay72% yeasenateFeb 4, 2014· Agreed to, 68-32Who voted which way: full roll callDemocratic44 yea9 nay83% yeaRepublican22 yea23 nay49% yeaIndependent / other2 yea0 nay100% yea - Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018P.L. 115-334Dec 20, 2018
Extended and expanded the programs, including broadening the definition of family members eligible for separate payment limits. Passed with large bipartisan majorities.
houseDec 12, 2018· Agreed to, 369-47Who voted which way: full roll callDemocratic187 yea3 nay98% yeaRepublican182 yea44 nay81% yeasenateDec 11, 2018· Agreed to, 87-13Who voted which way: full roll callDemocratic47 yea0 nay100% yeaRepublican38 yea13 nay75% yeaIndependent / other2 yea0 nay100% yea
Reform proposal
- Proposals to cap premium subsidies and tighten payment limitslive
Bipartisan proposals would cap per-operation premium support and close the entity-structuring routes around payment limits. Introduced in successive farm bill cycles without adoption.
Lobbying around this provision
This is not campaign money, and it is not attributable to the votes above. Lobbying disclosures record what organisations spent engaging policymakers across an entire issue area over a quarter. They are not broken out by party, by member, or by bill, and no part of this figure can be traced to any vote on this page. It is shown as an indicator of how organised the interest around this provision is, nothing more.
Demonstrating an actual relationship between money and votes would require campaign contribution records matched to each member of the roll call. That is a different dataset and is not yet built here.
Senate LDA filings, search disclosures by filer and issueSources and data freshness
Published within the last year. Figures marked unverified are seed estimates that have not been reconciled line-by-line against the primary source document. See the methodology for how each score is constructed.
Cite this figure
CBO, USDA Farm Programs Baseline, February 2026, published Jan 15, 2026. FY2025 estimate for "Federal crop insurance and commodity support programs": $15,599,000,000. https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2026-01/51317-2026-02-usda.pdf Via RentSeek, https://rentseek.bothand.tech/transfer/crop-insurance-commodity
The primary document is cited first on purpose. Send your reader to the source table rather than to this site, which is a finding aid and not the authority for any figure on it.