Pursuit's Take
USDA administers farm programs to provide financial assistance to farmers, particularly when they experience losses. GAO was asked to examine the potential for overlap and duplication among USDA’s farm programs.
From fiscal years 2008 through 2012, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported spending about $114 billion on 60 programs providing financial assistance to farmers, including about $28 billion in crop insurance subsidies.
While there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that these programs were duplicative, GAO recommended that RMA and FSA (1) monitor to identify the extent of duplicative payments and (2) develop a plan to prevent or recover any duplicative payments in 2014 involving a pilot RMA crop insurance policy.