| Chapter 1: | Farm Bills, Interest Groups, and Policy Change |
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The following chapters will analyze the factors that drove the opening and then closing of this policy reform window, focusing specifically on how popular and often nationalist framings of trade and energy issues by groups and in the public sphere influenced this shift in debates. They will also compare the lack of reform in the 2008 farm bill to previous change-oriented and stability-oriented farm bills to further distill some of the factors that can drive or inhibit policy change over time. The book will then analyze the implications of the 2008 farm bill for policy theories, sustainable land use, and future farm policy efforts.
Given that reforms to commodity policy could modernize the farm bill to serve a broader range of groups’ food and agricultural needs, I highlight a case in which reform almost happened (but didn’t) to focus on obstacles to change, impacts of policies on current environmental and social concerns, and ways in which sustainable agriculture and environmental groups (among others) can work toward potential farm policy reform in the future. On a theoretical level, examining this shift in policy change opportunity over the course of the 2008 farm bill debates helps refine scholars’ and practitioners’ broader understandings of how policy change does (or does not) take place.
Farm Bill History
Over the years, farm bills have been characterized by an expansion of both the number of policy issues incorporated into bills and the number of interest groups involved in debates. They have also been characterized by a certain level of inertia and resistance to change. These forces, and the tensions among them, are the key to dynamics of farm policy change and stability.
The first farm bill was passed in 1933 under President Roosevelt at the urging of farm groups calling for government support to balance out the booms and busts of agricultural production. Specifically, overproduction of commodity crops by farmers was keeping prices lower than costs of living, and farmers were going out of business (Cochrane, 2003). The 1933 farm bill created acreage reduction programs, where