Food Stamps Versus Farming Subsidies

By Joe Cereola

Too many ignorant food stamp memes portray recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as scammers abusing the system to buy iPhones, alcohol, cigarettes and other products deemed inappropriate for anyone receiving assistance from the government. Whether or not these caricatures actually exist is beside the point. The argument implies that if one has enough money to buy certain goods, then one should not be entitled to government assistance. Yet these haters fail to apply the same standard to the millions of wealthy farmers collecting billions in cash payments and insurance subsidies.

How much does the average food stamp recipient receive? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 46.6 million people participated in SNAP program in 2012, collecting $74.6 billion in benefits, which works out to an average monthly payment of $133 per month or $1600 per year. That same year, the Environmental Working Group farm subsidies database shows 1.19 million farmers collected $14.9 billion in subsidies, an average annual benefit of over $12,000 per farmer. The size of the average benefit is very misleading because the top ten percent of farms typically collect 75 percent of all subsidies. The top 100 recipients in 2012 each received over $270,000; the top ten all received over $500,000.

2012 Farmi ng Subsidy Recipients (crop insurance subsidies not included)

Who owns these farms? DNRC Trust Land Management is a division of the Montana Department Of Natural Resources & Conservation. I'm not sure why Montana is receiving federal farm subsidies, and rather than figure that one out I moved on to number two on the list.

Balmoral Farming Partnership is a Louisiana business entity; its officers are not individuals but rather three limited liability corporations (LLC): Gillespie Tensas, LLC; Cordill Tensas, LLC; and Curry Tensas, LLC. All three have the same address–the intersection of Louisiana Highways 605 & 888. 

Intersection of Louisiana Highways 605 & 888

Using the Louisiana Secretary Of State website I uncovered a web of businesses and their officers–18 LLCs controlled by 19 individuals all operating out of the same lonely intersection in northern Louisiana. The chart below shows the relationships between the businesses and individuals.

Balmoral Partnership at top, tan ovals are businesses, yellow ovals individuals.
(click the image to enlarge)

After making the above chart I found another LLC at the same address as the others. There are probably more.

From 2002 to 2012 Balmoral Farming Partnership collected a total of $21,276,199 in farming subsidies. I don't know what they're sowing down there in Louisiana but they're reaping federal dollars. 

None of the invective hurled at SNAP recipients gets directed at farmers. No one seems interested in examining how these farms spend their government largesse. I'm not suggesting that Balmoral Farming Partnership is doing anything illegal, but they certainly merit the same moral indignation and scrutiny as a food stamp recipient with iPhone.
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Click here to download a spreadsheet with Louisiana Business Filing data for the companies listed in the chart above.