Plowshares & Pork Barrels: The Political Economy of Agriculture

Plowshares & Pork Barrels provides the historical and economic context necessary to make sense of U.S. agricultural policy and examines possible market-based alternatives that could benefit consumers and ensure the advancement of American agriculture in an increasingly interdependent global economy.

Established in 1860, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has grown without cease and is now the most entrenched of all federal agencies. The Farm Bills signed by Presidents Bill Clinton in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2002 only served to further expand this byzantine system. Economists are nearly unanimous in their denunciation of this wasteful and pernicious web of politics. Subsidies for not growing crops are so notorious that they have been the object of biting political satire since their introduction in the 1930s. However, few books have critically analyzed government farm programs in their entirety like Plowshares & Pork Barrels.