Rent Seeking in the Farm Industry

 
  In this recent Washington Post article, Brad Plumer discusses the recent farm bill passed by House Republicans this past week. As indicated by the article's title, it seems surprising that these sort of bills pass, considering how few farmers remain in the United States, and especially considering the espoused fiscal conservatism of the Republican Party in particular. Though the author ultimately concludes that voting habits and pressure at the voting booth are responsible for the passage of these bills, a dubious conclusion considering how this graphic shows that the majority of subsidies go to the wealthiest minority recipients, an alternate explanation mentioned in the paper was that, "wealthy agribusinesses are somehow paying off Republicans to vote their way". While it is unlikely that Republican Congressman are literally being paid off (although who knows), agribusiness like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, among the top recipients of the subsidies, do spend an extraordinary amount of time, energy and money lobbying in Washington for these subsidy prizes, as this article outlines. It mentions how the, "The agribusiness industry plowed more than $80 million into lobbying last year, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics". This all resulted in a $955 billion bill proposed recently by the House, more than making up the impressive expense racked up by agribusiness interest. This incredible waste has spurred efforts from anti-farm subsidy lobby groups, however, rent seeking theory tells us that the agribusiness industry would be willing to pay substantially more to secure the subsidy rents, meaning that it is unlikely that we will see legitimate reform.