Mapping the Farm Bill: Expanding the Traditional Farm Coalition

The traditional corn-cotton-wheat coalition covered an extensive area of national production but concentrated within regions: corn in the Midwest, cotton in the South, and wheat split north to south in the Great Plains. USDA-NASS planted acres data indicates a significant change in commodity plantings over the course of farm bill history (1933 to 2014) as shown in Figure 1. Perhaps, the most notable trend is the increased acres planted to soybeans, going from negligible acres in 1933 to the second-largest crop in the country at over 83 million acres in 2014. The increase in soybean acres appears to have come largely at the expense of acres planted to wheat, cotton and other feed grains (grain sorghum, barley and oats). Acres planted to rice and peanuts are significantly smaller than the other crops and less clear in Figure 1. Peanut acres spiked during World War II, breaking 5 million acres planted in 1943. Rice acres have never topped 4 million acres, with an all-time high of 3.827 million acres in 1981. Importantly, these crops have all long been covered by the programs in the commodity title of the farm bill and thus play a role in the farm coalition and farm bill debates.