Quantifying inequities in the implementation of governmental farm payments to field and specialty crop producers

Abstract This paper estimates the racial, ethnic, and gender inequities in aggregate governmental funding to field and specialty crop farmers over 2002–2017 using a well‐matched subset of the USDA Agricultural Census microdata. I employ a coarsened exact matching model to compare most similar farmers, differentiated by Black race, Hispanic ethnicity, Asian race, and woman gender. I find that Black farmers received more funding than comparable white farmers in 2012 at both the federal and state/local levels but did not have significant differences in other years. I also find that Hispanic farmers received less federal funding in 2007 than non‐Hispanic White farmers and more state and local funding in 2012, while women have funding differences in both directions over time and in particular received more conservation funding than men. Ultimately, this paper does not find broad evidence of inequities in governmental payments for racial, ethnic, or gender minorities in the matched subset of field and specialty crop farmers. I conclude with additional ways that potential inequities could be tested by future studies.