The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) operates several programs that supplement the incomes of farmers and ranchers in times of low farm prices and helps them to manage risks associated with natural disasters and with variability in crop and pasture yields and commodity prices. These programs—referred to as the "farm safety net"—include three components: federal crop insurance, farm revenue support programs, and agricultural disaster assistance. Over the years substantial federal resources have been spent in support of the farm safety net. Much of this spending has gone to a small group of field crops. Within this group of field crops, there has been significant variation in both absolute and relative levels of historical farm support. The 2014 farm bill (Agricultural Act of 2014, P.L. 113-79 ) changed the structure of several safety-net programs; however, important differences in commodity-specific funding persist. In their June 2017 baseline projections of USDA program outlays through 2027, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects disparities in payments and relative support levels across program crops. CBO's June projections are described in a lay-friendly study released by f armdoc d aily on July 14, 2017. In the farmdocdaily study, when combined farm safety-net payments (excluding federal crop insurance premium subsidies) are expressed on a per-acre basis, peanuts receive the highest support rate with an average of $288 per acre. Rice receives the second-highest per-acre rate at $135 per acre. The average annual payment rate for all other program crops is below $30 per acre. The CBO projections are looking forward in years yet to come. In contrast, this report uses actual historical data to construct a series of charts and tables that provide information on the distribution of commodity-specific outlays under the farm safety-net programs of the 2014 farm bill during its first three years of operation (2014 through 2016). This information is intended to provide statistical context for evaluating the distribution of current farm program payments. This report does not assess the merit or fairness of this distribution, nor does it evaluate the social welfare outcome of federal farm payments. The first section of this report briefly describes the U.S. agricultural sector relative to USDA farm programs. The second section discusses why an understanding of commodity-specific support has merit. The third section summarizes the specific federal programs involved in the farm safety net—which crops are eligible for payments and whether payments are coupled with, or decoupled from, actual production. The fourth section of this report uses a series of charts to compare commodity-specific outlays that have occurred during the first three years of the 2014 farm bill using several different measures. The final section compares the relative levels of market price protection provided by marketing assistance loan rates and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) reference prices—all of which are fixed in statute—among program crops and relative to recent market conditions. Although significant differences in support across program crops are revealed, this report does not assess the merit or fairness of such differences. Several supplementary data tables are included at the end of the report and referenced throughout the text. U.S. agricultural production value has averaged $385.1 billion during the first three years (2014 through 2016) of the 2014 farm bill ( Table 1 ). Field crops eligible for USDA revenue support programs (discussed later in this report) have accounted for $115.7 billion, or 30% of the total. When combined with milk production—milk is eligible for potential federal payments under the Margin Protection Program (MPP)—the average value of program commodity production is $155.5 billion and represents 40.3% of U.S. agricultural production. The remaining nearly 60% of U.S. agricultural production is not eligible for USDA revenue support programs but is potentially eligible for either disaster assistance or crop insurance. While federal agricultural policy may have specific national goals—such as ensuring abundant agricultural output and safeguarding America's agricultural resources—when the supporting program outlays vary significantly across eligible crops, there is potential for unintended policy consequences. In particular, when farm program payments are linked to specific crops, they can influence relative market incentives and resource allocations. The stronger the payment-to-crop linkage, the greater the potential for producers to alter their crop choices based on the relative likelihood of program payments. Also, significant differences in support levels across program crops may have strong regional or geographic implications, because not all agricultural activities may be undertaken successfully in all agro-climatic settings, as these vary widely across the United States. Finally, the size of annual U.S. farm program outlays increases the potential severity of any unintended consequences. Over the years, substantial federal resources have been spent under federal commodity programs. Since U.S. farm support programs were first authorized in the 1930s, USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) has provided over $500 billion in taxpayer dollars in support of farm programs. Nearly $303 billion (or about 60%) of total CCC commodity support payments have occurred since the 1996 farm bill (Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, commonly referred to as the Freedom to Farm Act; P.L. 104-127 ) was signed into law, including over $188 billion in payments to a select group of major field crops—feed grains (corn, sorghum, barley, and oats), cotton, wheat, rice, soybeans, and peanuts. The Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1980 ( P.L. 96-365 ) created the current public-private partnership between the federal government and private insurance companies and established federal support for crop insurance that includes substantial premium subsidies. Under this framework, private insurance companies deliver and service crop insurance policies that are regulated and supported by USDA's Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). Since 1980, the FCIC has paid over $80 billion in premium subsidies to support federal crop insurance policies. The traditional CCC farm program crops (cited in the previous paragraph) have been the beneficiaries of over 85% of federal crop insurance premium subsidies. Prior to the 2014 farm bill, agricultural disaster assistance programs were usually ad hoc (meaning both unanticipated and off-budget) and often targeted to the same set of crops covered by farm programs and crop insurance. From 1978 through 2013, USDA spent nearly $45 billion on various agricultural disaster assistance programs. The 2014 farm bill changed this approach and created a set of permanent agricultural disaster assistance programs that focus assistance on livestock, orchards, and vineyards rather than on the traditional farm program crops. Market prices—determined by the intersection of supply and demand—are the primary signal by which a market-based economy allocates resources. U.S. farm commodity programs were intended to provide a safety net under, rather than supersede, market forces. However, USDA's combined CCC and FCIC outlays represent a substantial investment in the U.S. agricultural sector, particularly for a subset of commodities. The magnitude of federal support payments may have kept some resources in the agricultural sector that would have otherwise moved to other sectors of the economy. Proponents of farm support programs have argued that producer vulnerability to seasonal weather uncertainty and global market conditions—particularly when substantial land and capital resources are invested in a single year's crop activity—merits public intervention. They contend that a single bad weather event or unexpected disruption in international markets could potentially drive significant irreplaceable resources from the agricultural sector. In contrast, critics contend that producers may choose from ample private sector risk-management tactics to offset weather risk while other sectors of the U.S. economy also face tough competition in international markets. Apart from the policy choice of making a large public investment in a single sector of the nation's economy, the intensive focus on a small number of field crops raises the question of whether all U.S. farm commodities (and hence certain geographic regions of the country) have been treated equitably by the various farm programs. Significant funding differences across programs and commodities raise the question of whether potential unintended incentives might divert producer behavior from the production choices that would otherwise prevail in the absence of government programs. For example, some farm subsidy critics claim that, by focusing federal farm support primarily on feedstuffs (feed grains and protein meals), U.S. farm policy has lowered the cost for American consumers of meat relative to fruits and vegetables—which have been essentially unsubsidized. If true, this would suggest that current farm price and income support programs have indirect nutritional consequences. Similarly, critics of federal intervention in crop insurance markets have argued that by removing a substantial portion of the risk of farming on land with high yield variability, large federal crop insurance subsidies have encouraged production on marginal and environmentally sensitive crop land or discouraged the adoption of more environmentally friendly production techniques. Most of the United States lies within a temperate zone, but agro-climatic variations still result in important regional specialization. For example, the rich, deep soils of the U.S. Corn Belt—stretching from Ohio westward through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, southern Minnesota, and northern Missouri to Nebraska and Kansas—make it one of the world's most productive corn- and soybean-growing regions. The warm, humid conditions of the U.S. Cotton Belt stretch from the Carolinas westward across the southern United States through the delta states and into northern Texas, while a Hard Wheat Belt encompasses the arid northern and southern plains states. High-protein spring wheat thrives in a northern tier from Montana to Minnesota, while soft wheat production is spread throughout the wetter environments of both the Corn and Cotton Belts and the Pacific Northwest. Irrigation has allowed agriculture to flourish in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and arid portions of the states bordering the eastern and western Rocky Mountains.