Yes, we should change the funding structure.
Per an Iowa State study, there are approximately 938,000 farms in the region.
A farm is defined as any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year. Beginning in 1997, operations receiving $1,000 or more in Federal government payments were counted as farms, even if they had no sales reported in the census year.
https://www.icip.iastate.edu/tables/agriculture/farms-by-stateHowever, many farmers won't be producing subsidies - based on RL, most subsidies were given based on gallons of ethanol produced, so $.45 given back to farmers for every gallon produced. I would incorporate that in here. Now, my recommendation would be to set a maximum amount that the Department of Agriculture can grant per year and then possibly request a CG evaluation a year from now on what this is would cost at full capacity. Because to just grant the $.45/gallon number would require a CG evaluation on how much this will cost, and since we don't have an active CG, we would have to let this bill sit for a while or table it.
Thoughts on which direction we should go?
