![Pigs looking through fence](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_standard_xl/public/2022-02/LivestockBlog.jpg?h=2e181f1f&itok=5DyN7jy0)
The Department of Agriculture has spent almost $50 billion in subsidies for livestock operators since 1995, according to an EWG analysis.
By contrast, since 2018 the USDA has spent less than $30 million to support plant-based and other alternative proteins that may produce fewer greenhouse gases and may require less land than livestock.
Overall, EWG’s analysis finds the USDA provided $49.6 billion in payments to support livestock operators between 1995 and 2021, including more than $11 billion in livestock disaster assistance payments.
Other major subsidies include $14.2 billion in livestock commodity purchases, nearly $5 billion in dairy subsidies and more than $15 billion in payments to offset the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Separately, the USDA also provided nearly $1 billion to offset the effects of former President Donald Trump’s trade war with China between 2018 and 2020 – and nearly $1 billion in Market Loss Assistance payments to dairy producers between 1999 and 2007.
USDA livestock and alternative protein subsidies
![Alternative protein chart](/sites/default/files/styles/scaled_xl/public/2022-02/EWG_Animal-Alt-Proteins_Chart_C02.jpg?itok=Yxn7xNmX)
EWG’s analysis of subsidies to livestock operators did not include those paid to farmers who grow animal feed like corn and soybeans, which topped $160 billion between 1995 and 2020. Our analysis also excludes $670 million in research grants.
Payments to support livestock operators peaked at $11 billion, in 2020, and have exceeded $1 billion in 14 of the past 25 years. Spending in 2020 alone, at $10.95 billion, was more than double the payments made in 2014, the year with the previous record-setting level of payments.
Total spending for 2020 and 2021 remains incomplete, as the data is still coming in. The totals for those years are likely to grow.