Actively engaged in farming?

Center for Rural Affairs

On December 17, 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued their final rule defining what it means to be actively engaged in farming and thereby eligible to receive federal farm payments. The final rule serves only to ensure access to unlimited farm program payments for the vast majority of the nation’s largest and wealthiest farms and writes loopholes directly into regulation.

USDA is more interested in allowing the nation’s largest farms to avoid meaningful payment limits than in making farm payment limits more effective – the intended purpose of a new rule. USD...