January 12, 2011 10:37AM # Surprise, Surprise By [Sallie James](https://www.cato.org/people/sallie-james) --- SHARE Last year I wrote about the [intriguing proposal by the North Dakota Farm Bureau to do away with federal farm subsidies](https://www.cato.org/hell-freezes-over-or-at-least-gets-cooler/). I expressed at the time my doubt that the proposal would find much traction with the national American Farm Bureau Federation and, indeed, the group voted yesterday (at their annual conference in Atlanta) *against* the milder proposition to cut direct payments — the approximately $5.2 billion per year of your money that flows to farmers regardless of what, or even whether, they farm. Those payments are becoming increasingly politically contentious at a time of growing unease about record deficits, and some farm groups had said defending (let alone receiving) them was a threat to farmers’ broader interests. Well, despite some discord among the group, the AFBF — you’ll be shocked, *shocked* to hear — voted largely for the status quo. From *[Brownfield](http://brownfieldagnews.com/2011/01/11/direct-payments-included-in-afbf-resolution/)* (in an article that contains interesting analysis of how support for various programs breaks down on state/​regional lines): > By a comfortable margin, the delegates passed a resolution calling for ‘a strong and effective safety net that consists of direct payments, crop insurance and a simplified Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program.[](http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FarmPolicy/ACRE.htm)’ Hopefully Congress can [prove](https://www.cato.org/republican-hypocrisy-watch/) me [wrong](https://www.cato.org/post-election-outlook-agriculture-edition/) and cut farm subsidies when the farm bill comes up for renewal in 2012. ##### Related Tags [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy), [Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies](https://www.cato.org/herbert-stiefel-center-trade-policy-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).