At least 14 lawmakers will likely vote soon to increase the size of the farm subsidy checks they keep getting from the federal government.
These members of Congress and their families raked in millions of dollars through federal farm subsidy programs between 1995 and 2024, according to updated information in EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database. The group includes nine members of the House and Senate agriculture committees.
And a vote by these lawmakers for the budget bill Congress is debating would make it easier for their checks to get bigger and bigger. The bill, if enacted, would not only ease their path to getting subsidies, it would also send more money to the largest, most successful farms.
Other lawmakers have received farm subsidy payments. But records suggest they no longer collect them or the farms are no longer in operation.
EWG’s findings are based on Department of Agriculture subsidy records and other information from the lawmakers’ public financial disclosures. Some detail the portion of their family’s farm operation they control, but that information isn’t always available.
Some lawmakers may have reorganized their farms, so they would no longer directly receive subsidies. But in those cases, they can still benefit from farm subsidy payments to businesses in which they have a financial stake.
Millions in payments
EWG’s updated Farm Subsidy Database derives from three decades’ worth of information about payments. For some lawmakers, payments amount to millions of dollars, and the total for all payments over the 30 years is $17,516,444. For the complete list of sitting members of Congress and family members who have received farm subsidies, click here.
The payments came from several different programs. Eleven members of Congress or their family members received $1,815,120 in subsidies from the USDA’s Market Facilitation Program, or MFP. The Trump administration created the program in 2019 to offset the effects of its trade war with China.
Thirteen members of Congress or their families took in $4,797,019 from the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, or CFAP, created in 2020 to help farmers through the pandemic.
The nine members of the Senate and House agriculture committees who individually or as part of a family appear to still be getting payments are Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Reps. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), James Baird (R-Ind.) and Mary Miller (R-Ill.).
Bonanza for members of Congress
The biggest windfall from taxpayer pocketbooks went to the family of Rep. David G. Valadao (R-Calif.), whose farms took in over $4 million in commodity subsidies for dairy, barley, corn, cotton, sorghum and wheat. Valadao has a financial stake in four family dairy farms.
His businesses also received over $500,000 in MFP payments and nearly $1.5 million in CFAP payments.
The second largest congressional recipient was the family of Rep. Vince Fong (R-Calif.), whose farms collected nearly $4 million in commodity subsidies for dairy, cotton, wheat and corn. Fong has a financial stake in two family dairy farms. His businesses also collected nearly $400,000 in MFP payments and $1.4 million in CFAP payments.
The family of Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) was the third largest congressional farm subsidy recipient. The family farms collected over $2.3 million in commodity payments for oats, wheat, corn, soybeans and barley. Stutzman Family Farms and Poultry Farms raked in over $813,000 in CFAP payments.
Four first-year members of Congress or their immediate family together received nearly $7.2 million in federal farm subsidies: Reps. April McClain Delaney (D-Md.), Fong, Stutzman and Sen. James Justice (R-W.Va.).
The family business
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), his spouse and his family businesses may have taken in more than $3.8 million in commodity and disaster payments for cotton, soybeans, wheat, corn and sorghum. But his financial disclosure forms are silent on this issue and EWG did not include this total in the final tally.
Aderholt’s financial disclosure form lists a farm called Greenbrier Enterprises, which received $51,808 between 2009 and 2018.
But this business shares an address with his wife’s family operation, McDonald Farm, which has received nearly $3.8 million in subsidies over the past 30 years, including $100,000 in 2020 alone. McDonald Farm appears nowhere on Aderholt’s public financial disclosure forms.
His wife, Caroline Aderholt, publicly acknowledges her role in the management of her family farms, including Greenbrier and McDonald.
EWG has no way of knowing if other lawmakers may also have ties to business operations that get subsidies if they are not listed on their financial disclosure forms.
Other lawmakers who have received subsidies
Ten additional members of Congress or their families have received subsidies in the past but appear to no longer get them or no longer operate their farms, according to their financial disclosure forms and EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database. These members or their family members have not received subsidies from their farm since 2019 or earlier.
These include Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) and Reps. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), James Comer Jr. (R-Ky.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), McClain Delaney, Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.), John Rose (R-Tenn.) and Brian Babin (R-Texas.).
Congress weighs reconciliation bill
The budget bill Congress is debating includes several provisions that would make it easier for lawmakers and their families to receive more subsidies. If the bill becomes law, it would also dramatically increase federal subsidy payments to the largest and most successful farms, as well as corporate farms.
And the bill, if enacted, would make these changes while continuing to leave small family farms out of the system.
It would raise by 10% to 20% the price guarantees that drive many of the subsidy payments for covered commodity crops. This in turn would boost subsidy payments, especially to the largest farms.
The bill would also create new corporate payment loopholes. It would raise the payment cap from $125,000 to $155,000 per person, and allow every member of a farm organized as a pass-through entity – such as a joint venture, S corporation or limited liability corporation – to collect up to $155,000 a year each. That contrasts with the current system’s cap, which permits each member to receive a share of the $125,000 payment.
The bill would also gut a long-standing income limit designed to keep millionaires from receiving disaster and conservation payments.
Lawmakers are proposing many other loopholes in the bill that, if enacted, would drive more money to the wealthiest farms.
Many of the members of Congress who sit on the agriculture committees, which created these loopholes, and many who voted to approve them, stand to benefit directly from the planned federal subsidy increases.
