Nutrition Programs. The largest subsidy in the farm bill is the outlay for subsidized nutrition programs, including food stamps, and school lunches and breakfasts. Subsidized food programs--with an outlay of some $60 billion in 2008--account for about three-fifths of total USDA spending.

The original purpose of these programs, when begun in the 1930s, was to facilitate the operation of price-support programs for farm commodities. The U.S. government had acquired large stocks of butter, cheese, and other products in operating price supports for farm products, and these products initially were used in food distribution programs to low-income consumers. The subsidized food programs provided a politically acceptable way to dispose of costly surpluses.

It should not be surprising that the major constituency for subsidized food programs is no longer commercial agriculture. Instead, it is urban interests benefiting from and advocating "poverty programs." In congressional negotiations on the 2008 farm bill, legislators from farm districts were able to maintain conventional farm-commodity programs and related subsidies in the face of record-high farm product prices by forming an alliance with legislators from urban districts who sought and obtained increased food subsidies.