A new Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey published by the University of Illinois aimed to understand how government payments to farmers fare in the court of public opinion. The quarterly questionnaire was conducted from May 2022 to November 2024 and included 1K U.S. residents designed to represent the demographics of the U.S. population.
Farm funding in favor: The study asked participants to note their support for payments to farmers for various scenarios. Throughout the study’s two years, the responses were relatively consistent. The scenarios are listed in order of public support:
- Natural disasters harming their crops (averaging 80% support)
- Making crop insurance protection more affordable
- Farmers adopting sustainable practices
- An income source
- Compensating for ag trade or export restrictions
- Crop prices being too low (averaging 43% support)
Tangent: The timing of this study closely coincides with the 118th Congress’ last-minute action to extend the 2018 farm bill another year and push through funds for disaster relief. That included $30.78B in assistance to farmers for relief from natural disasters and low crop price projections.
Tariff talk: The topic on everyone’s minds these days is Trump’s tariffs. When asked about political leanings in the November survey, 60% of both Democratic and Republican participants supported payments to farmers. That was a pretty steep uptick in Republican support compared to less than 50% support in the prior quarter. Independent/other participants also saw an increase in support in the last wave of the survey.