U.S. Farm Bills and Policy Reforms: Ideological Conflicts Over W ...

growing number of consumer and interest groups brought their concerns about the negative environmental and social consequences of commodity policy into the media—asking why, for instance, fruits and vegetables were more expensive than processed foods made from corn and soybeans, why pollution in the Gulf of Mexico was getting worse, and why many farming communities were suffering population loss even as demand for food was rising (Pollan, 2006). This combination of a heightened internal focus on the negative implications of commodity provisions and increased internal and external pressures to reform these provisions created an atmosphere in which a reconsideration of status quo farm policy became possible. As described previously, multiple groups, individuals, newspaper articles, and politicians began calling for farm bill reform. Traditional farm bill interests stepped up their efforts to defend existing commodity policy.

But in 2006, before consideration of the 2008 farm bill actually began in Congress, this potential window of opportunity for reforming subsidies, which had opened under WTO and consumer group pressures, was closed by the stalling of WTO talks, the election of a Democratic majority to Congress less interested in eliminating barriers to trade, and an increased focus on biofuels production that raised grain prices and relieved impending budget pressures. Suddenly, what had looked like a historically unique opportunity for commodity policy reform turned into a more traditional incremental policy change atmosphere, and the balance of power returned to those groups more invested in a status quo farm policy. The 2008 farm bill became a piece of legislation that once again tweaked farm policy rather than reformed it.

This book will focus on how and why this farm bill context shifted from a potential reform context to a status quo context in the span of2 years and what this shift meant for land use incentives. The shift provides a particularly condensed case in which a policy context changed even as the historical time period and range of interest groups involved remained the same. This in turn facilitates an analysis of the kinds of factors that can make it sometimes more and sometimes less possible to effect policy change.