US Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Sector NAICS 11

Aug 16, 2025 - Tax Bill Favors Large Farms

• President Trump’s tax bill, signed on July 4th, provides a $60 billion boost to farm subsidies, but the way the funding will be distributed could worsen disparities between farms in an industry already struggling with consolidation, The New York Times reports. Which farms benefit the most may depend on what they grow, with large farms, particularly in the South, poised to reap the most benefits, while smaller farms and independent producers who grow fruits and vegetables or raise livestock say the distribution of funding will deepen the consolidation of an industry that has lost over 300,000 farms in the past two decades, per NYT. According to the Congressional Budget Office, more than $50 billion of the funding will go toward increasing payments to farmers enrolled in price and revenue support programs covering 22 commodity crops, or major crops like corn and soybeans.
• For farmers who don’t grow covered commodities, President Trump’s tax bill law may worsen existing challenges, The New York Times reports. The National Family Farm Coalition, which supports smaller farms, warns that the new law is short sighted, unnecessarily favoring large corporations. “The monies are not flowing to small- and medium-sized family farms,” Vincent H. Smith, an agricultural economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, told NYT, adding “They’re flowing overwhelmingly to the largest producers.” Farmers not eligible for the programs receiving a vast majority of the funding increases include Bryce Loewen, who grows peaches, plums, and other fruits on a 78-acre farm in California’s Central Valley. Moreover, Loewen says he expects to lose revenue due to another aspect of the law, which makes big cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka food stamps). Cuts to SNAP not only hurt recipients but farmers themselves.

• In July, the US Coast Guard announced the renaming of its operational districts from numerical to geographic designations, according to a press release. The change is the first since the numbered system was established during World War II. Updating operational districts to regional names aims to more clearly align districts with their areas of responsibility, facilitate collaboration with interagency partners, and ensure the American public and maritime stakeholders can easily find and understand the districts in which they live, recreate, and operate. The new geographic names, approved by the Department of Homeland Security, are: District 1: USCG Northeast District; District 5: USCG East District; District 7: USCG Southeast District; District 8: USCG Heartland District; District 9: USCG Great Lakes District; District 11: USCG Southwest District; District 13: USCG Northwest District; District 14: USCG Oceania District; District 17: USCG Arctic District. This change will not impact operations or change existing geographical district boundaries, per the USCG.
• US wheat production is declining as farmers from Texas to Montana abandon more fields before harvest, Reuters reported in June. As wheat prices sink to five-year lows, some farmers are scrapping plans to harvest wheat for sale in favor of planting corn or soybeans, grazing cattle, or erecting windmills, according to Reuters. With prices hovering around $5 per bushel, wheat is less profitable than other crops and farmers struggle to break even. Severe drought across the Great Plains has lowered yields and historically low prices have led US farmers to abandon between a fifth and a third of the winter wheat crop each year since 2020, Department of Agriculture data show. Moreover, plentiful global supplies have kept benchmark US prices stuck at lows that discourage farmers from growing wheat. The termination of the Food for Peace program is the latest blow to US wheat growers.