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Relationships Between USDA Subsidy Payments and

Voting Patterns of House Agriculture Committee Members


By: Danielle Gilmour

WA

MI

MN

OR

NH

SD

MA

NY

WI
MI

CT
IA
PA
OH
IL
CO

CA

MO
VA

NC

TN
OK
AR

NM

AL

GA

TX

FL

265

530

1,060 Miles

States with Members on the House Agriculture Committee


Subsidy Payments Recieved from the USDA in 2012
$2,408,758.00 - $8,689,981.00 (3)
$8,689,981.01 - $171,729,102.00 (8)
$171,729,102.01 - $426,661,562.00 (10)
$426,661,562.01 - $720,927,416.00 (2)
$720,927,416.01 - $1,374,797,147.00 (4)

States Without Representitives on the House Ag. Committee


House Agriculture Committe Member by District's Vote on:
The Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013
Nay
Yea

Of the Top 50 USDA Subsidy Recieving Counites for 2012Rank of Counties that Fall Within Each Represented State
1-5
6 - 10
11 - 25
26 - 50

Originally written by the House


Agriculture Committee (before
amendments), The Federal
Agriculture Reform and Risk
Management Act of 2013
designed the structure for USDA
subsidy payments for the
next five years. The overall
House vote was basically split
on party lines with 216
Republicans Yea and 196
Democrats and 12 Republicans
Nay. This maps seeks to
visualize the relationship between
the subsidies states and counties
received and the corresponding
vote their House Agriculture
Committee members had on the
policy which dictates that
appropriation of money.

Constituent Area of a House Agriculture Committee Member


Sources:
HOUSE VOTE #353 IN 2013 [Web]. GovTrack.us, by Civic Impulse, LLC.
Total USDA - Subsidies by state, 2012 and Total USDA - Subsidies in United States by county, 2012 [Web]. Environmental Working Group 2013 Farm Subsidy Database, Washington, DC.
tl_rd13_us_cd113.shp (2013)[downloaded file]. The United States Census Bureau, Washington, DC.
usdata.gdb. Mastering ArcGIS, 6th Ed. (2014) [DVD]. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., New York, NY.
Committee Members [Web]. The United States House of Representitives, Washignton D.C.

Danielle Gilmour
GEOG 360- Final Project
Section AB Crane

Introduction:
Research Question- In which ways do the amount of USDA subsides each state
received in 2012 effect the House Agriculture Committee member's vote on The
Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013 (which dictates
agricultural subsidies in the future)?
Politically driven affairs with food have been an evolving interest of mine.
When I came to the University of Washington in fall of 2012 I had never thought to
correlate food production and society. To me, food simply was fuel to live and
always accessible when I wanted it. I knew there were hunger issues in the world,
but I considered hunger to be an isolated phenomena resulting from food
production problems unique to an area. My first quarter I took several
environmental classes that explored food production techniques and their impacts
on the environment. It seems ignorant, but because I had viewed food the same
as any other commodity in my life, I had not realized its intimate connection to the
earth. As a budding and overwhelmed environmentalist, I had found my niche in
the ubiquitous issue of environmental degradation.
The following quarter I took my first UW Geography course The Geography
of Food and Eating. This course built upon my knowledge by connecting food
production to space and place. I started to grasp the concept of our intricate and
interdependent global food system; how production in one hemisphere of the
earth can dictate consumption in another. I was introduced to the structural and
political factors effecting health issues resulting from food scarcity and/or
abundance at community and national levels. This class focused on the private
markets relationship to food production and governmental distribution of food.
This confusing system came to a full circle when I started studying the political
factors that have built, enabled and perpetuated it. Through this geography course
I took on a service learning opportunity which has resulted in an almost yearlong
internship with the Northwest Farm Bill Action Group. Through my involvement as
their intern, I have become immersed in the political atmosphere of the American
food system by advocating and educating about the largest piece of federal food
policy, the Farm Bill.
I have found geography to be an effective lens and GIS to be an essential
tool in analyzing the many facets of the food system (the earth, producers,
consumers and communities). This project is an analysis of one small facet of the
political drivers which dictate our food system. It strives to visualize relationships
between money allocation and policy development. In the end, it will add to the
incessant question of how our food system influences the development and
functioning of space and place, and why it functions this way.
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Data sources:
To assess this particular political relationship I mapped the amount of
money each state received from the USDA in 2012, the way each member of the
House Agriculture Committee voted, the top 50 subsidy receiving counties in the
U.S., and the counties that fell within the House Agriculture representatives
congressional district (which represents direct relation to voting constituents).
The data on USDA subsidy distribution is from the Environmental Working
Groups 2013 Farm Subsidy Database. The database tracks $256 billion in farm
subsidies from commodity, crop insurance, and disaster programs and $39 billion
in conservation payments paid between 1995 and 2012.
(http://farm.ewg.org/index.php). This database is not a direct government
product. The environmental working group has taken these USDA public records
and made them user-friendly. I used two specific datasets: Total USDA Subsidies by state, 2012 and Total USDA - Subsidies in United States by county,
2012. The data is not easily accessible through a downloadable file; it must be
copied and pasted into an excel file and converted to CSV. The county and state
names automatically transfer together in once cell; they must be separated to
enable joins later. Luckily excel is intuitive when creating a new column of state
names. I did not use the percent total and running percentage fields.
The voting data is from another NGO seeking to ensure governmental
transparency, govtrack.us. I located the records by searching for the specific Farm
Bill act: H.R. 2642: Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013.
Data can be easily downloaded as a CSV, but there are several unnecessary fields
that I deleted for clarity. The only needed fields are the state abbreviation,
congressperson, and their vote. These labels must be created for each column.
I used several shape files to create my map. First, U.S. county and state
files from the usdata.gdb provided to us from our book Mastering ArcGIS, 6th
Ed.s DVD. I accessed the U.S. Census Bureaus database to find a shapefile for
the 133th Congresses district boundaries. Six files come with the download of this
data, but I only could use tl_rd13_us_cd113.shp. The only applicable fields are
STATEFP and NAMELSAD. I was not able to successfully open any of the other
files that came with this data, and thus do not know the function of most of the
other fields.
There are 435 U.S. House Members and corresponding districts, but this
project only focuses on the 27 states represented in the House Agriculture
Committee. So it is essential to know who those individuals are which can be
obtained from http://agriculture.house.gov/. Once again, there is no downloadable
file and the pasted data must be organized manually into three columns:

Congressperson, State Abbreviation, and District. The district field must be


prefaced with congressional district and then the number.
To ease joins later I removed the word County from the column in the
County Subsidies file because the counties shapefile only has the name. The
names of the representatives will not match up because the voting file includes
nicknames in what should be parenthesis, but are actually strange characters
which could not be replaced with the find and replace tool. To avoid frustration
later, I created a column in the House Ag. Reps. Table with their vote (yea/nay) by
manually searching and copy/pasting for each of them.

Analysis/Mapping:
I began by adding the states, counties, and congressional districts shape
files. The Census Bureau shapefile was in the coordinate system:
GCS_North_American_1983. I switched the coordinate system to NAD 1983 (2011)
Contiguous USA Albers because the geographic coordinate system was too
distorted and in degree format. I also picked this coordinate system because I
knew Alaska and Hawaii would not be represented in the final map, so their
distortion was not an issue. The districts layer does not fit perfectly with the states
layer, and congressional districts stretch into bodies of water. So for visual clarity I
clipped the districts layer to the states layer.
Next I selected the relevant states for this project. I did this by joining the
states layer and the House Ag. Reps table through the state abbreviation fields.
Not all representatives will be portrayed in this new table because it is a one-tomany join (there are often multiple representatives from one state). ArcMap
automatically assigns the first representative to the state, which is all we need as
we isolate these states. To do this I did a Select by Attributes query using the SQL
command Congressperson IS NOT NULL. This excludes any states that do not
have an Ag. Rep. I then made a new layer with this data, and repeated the
procedure for the counties layer which must first be joined to the state layer
through State_FIPS to acquire the state name abbreviation that the House Ag.
Reps table relies on.
I then added the subsidy data to the new county and state layers. I did this
by joining the tables to the layer though the full state name. Then came the step of
visual representation. I decided to show a range of subsidy payment amounts
through a graduated colors symbology categorizing it with natural breaks (Jenks)
which I found created a fair representation. I ended up adjusting the default

color palette I chose because of possible visual muddiness with the seven other
colors that would be later added to the map.
I faced issues connecting the county subsidy information to the county file
because there are multiple counties with the same name in the U.S. Luckily, within
the county subsidy table there are no repeated names, so each was assigned to
multiple states. I joined the subsidy information to the county file though the
county name, and made a new layer of the appropriate counties by a select by
attributes query where NAME (in the counties layer) = state name (of the subsidy
table). I decided to display the county subsidy amounts by the ranking (so there
were not multiple graduated color layers). I manually broke them into 4 groups:
Top 5, Top 10, Top 24, and Top 50. Because the data is quantitative, I used
four distinct colors to represent the categories. These colors had to be calm
enough not to distract from the graduated state colors behind it, but distinct
enough to show difference. They also had to differ from the distinct red, yellow,
and green outlines that I use in the next step.
The next step is to represent the applicable house districts and symbolize
them through their vote. This was no small task. There was no way to join by the
district number because those numbers are repeated in each state. Because there
are multiple reps from some states I could not do a successful simple join (oneto-many). When I joined the tables using the state name (after joining the Ag.
Reps. To states to acquire the State_FPS field) every district in the state was
joined with the first alphabetical representative of that state. This is where I
reverted to doing things the old fashioned way. I separated the House Ag. Reps.
Table into 27 small CSV tables, one for each state. I then created 27 new layers
each containing all of the districts for each one of the represented states. I then
joined each individual state table to its corresponding state districts file though the
district name, and chose to keep only the matching records so it would
automatically make a layer with the appropriate House members. I attempted to
create a model so I would not have to repeat this process so many times, but it
failed. It was also attempted to create a new field with some unique combination
of state name and district number so a join could be made, but that failed. Having
27 different layers made visual representation a daunting task. I went into each
layer and created the symbology based on a unique values category with yea as a
green outline and nay as a red outline of the district. I added the state
abbreviations (because full names could cover data) as a label because state
representation is important in this map, but the label by default covered important
information. So I went to each layer and changed the label settings to high feature
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weight in the placement properties. I was also sure to create a halo around the
abbreviations so they were visible against the very dark states. I kept the districts
hollow so the ranked counties could show through.
My last analysis function was an intersect of the counties and congressional
districts within a state, which shows direct voter constituents of that congress
member are receiving a large amount of USDA Subsidy support. To do this I
intersected the counties layer with each state district layer where I saw possible
overlap. Then I went in and represented each overlapping area with a yellow
boundary and hollow center so the ranking of the county shows through.

Interpretation of Results:
I was planning to see a stronger correlation between the money each
state/county received and the way their corresponding representatives voted on
the policy that would dictate these payments for the future. The states receiving
the most subsidies did not have all yeas and the highest subsidy receiving
counties were not always within a yea district. Because the relationships shown
in this map are not clearly defined (Im not showing a distinct phenomenon) I think
more research could be helpful. My map did not show but told that the vote was
along party lines, which I think was a major determinant of my maps data.
Although some states receive high amounts of subsidies they sometimes have an
agriculture representative who is democratic. The only relationship that my map
clearly showed was that congress people often vote based on their party. I think
an overall message that the map shows though, is that massive amounts of money
have gone toward an outdated direct-payment system. The Federal Agriculture
Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013 actually proposed to end these
payments, but in turn replaced them with very similar crop insurance systems
which would benefit similar constituents as the direct payments did. This was a
main reason that the democrats did not support this bill, but was not shown in the
map.

Conclusion:
A strength of my map is consistency and attention to detail. I worked hard
to assure all fonts were consistent, including making my own north arrow. I
spent a lot of time adjusting the colors of my map to assure it is readable, but I do
not know if the scheme would be aesthetically pleasing for all viewers. It is hard to
coordinate so many colors. I think my research question had intentions for a
strong phenomenon to be visualized, but the expected outcome was not always
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dominant. I think with further research a lot more could be shown. For instance,
the counties in Texas seem to be closely located and receiving a high amount of
subsidies supported by their representatives. I wonder what industry this is,
possibly cattle? Researching that industrys relationship to the politicians might be
interesting. Also, many of the top 50 subsidy receiving counties were not shown
on the map because they did not fall within the represented states (many were in
North Dakota). I might be more appropriate to rank the top 100 counties of those
selected states. I believe with more research, focusing on specific areas and the
influences of other congress people not on the Agriculture Committee, there might
be a stronger correlation of payment support.

References:
I did not use any concepts from outside sources other than the class textbook and
lectures.

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