Farm Programs: Distribution of USDA Income Support Payments

GAO discussed the distribution of the Department of Agriculture's income support payments for crop year 1993, focusing on the: (1) value of these payments; and (2) extent to which these payments may be concentrated among relatively few farms. GAO noted that: (1) payments to individual farms ranged from less than $100 to almost $1.8 million; (2) approximately 75 percent of the 989,000 farms received payments of $5,000 or less; (3) fewer than 1 percent of the farms received payments over $100,000; (4) income support payments to farms averaged approximately $5,500; (5) although average payments varied between commodities, payments for rice and cotton were the largest at $31,200 and $10,300, respectively; and (6) approximately 54 percent of the payments went to about 10 percent of the farms.