Reduce subsidies to agricultural corporations by $1 billion
Federal budget
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Farm subsidy levels are written by Congress in the farm bill. The documented obstacle to cutting them is the recipients' own lobby. Agribusiness and crop insurance interests spent $95 million on lobbying in a single year and fielded 840 lobbyists. They have spent over half a billion dollars since 2006, helping hold Senate farm bill savings to about 2 percent. The scale of that influence is documented across the whole farm bill. Agribusiness interests spent $523 million lobbying Congress from 2019 through 2023, with 561 companies and trade groups at work. Another $3.4 million was donated to the key committee members' campaigns. The Environmental Working Group traces the program's political durability to how hard and effectively the insurance industry lobbies Congress. Several major crop insurers are units of publicly traded companies, so owners can press them to stand down that lobbying, which helps but cannot itself write a farm bill. Majorities of both parties want these subsidies trimmed. No documented obstacle stands between that support and a modest cut except this lobbying wall. We judge that wall the linchpin: owners directing agribusiness and crop insurance companies to stand down their lobbying can release the block.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Common Ground of the American People: The Federal Budget (Americans on the FY2025 Budget), Program for Public Consultation / Voice of the People, survey May 30 - June 16, 2025
- Political Power of the Agribusiness and Crop Insurance Lobbies, Taxpayers for Common Sense, 2012-10-31
- The Revenue Insurance Boondoggle: A Taxpayer-Paid Windfall for Industry, Environmental Working Group, 2011
- Agribusiness, Industry Lobbying Exceeds $500 Million, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2024-05-13
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Co-filed the 2024 proposal at Tyson Foods asking the company to report on whether its lobbying, including through trade associations, aligns with its climate commitments.
Lead filer of the 2024 Tyson Foods proposal on the alignment of the company's direct and trade association lobbying with its science-based climate targets.
Filed the 2021 Tyson Foods proposal seeking expanded disclosure of the company's lobbying payments, including payments to trade organizations.
Shareholders Win Unprecedented Support for Reforms at Tyson Foods, PR Newswire, 2021-02
Co-filed the 2021 Tyson Foods lobbying disclosure proposal.
Shareholders Win Unprecedented Support for Reforms at Tyson Foods, PR Newswire, 2021-02
2 campaigns on record
Annually evaluate and report on whether the company's lobbying, directly and through its trade associations and social welfare organizations, aligns with its science-based target and long-term net zero ambitions.
With Mercy Investment Services
Result: not stated in source
Expand disclosure of the company's lobbying payments, including payments to trade organizations, and explain how industry groups lobbied on poultry slaughter line speeds.
With Oxfam America
Result: nearly 82 percent of independent shareholder votes in favour
Shareholders Win Unprecedented Support for Reforms at Tyson Foods, PR Newswire, 2021-02
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Common Ground of the American People's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.