Decades of agriculture budget authority.
USDA's total budget authority, FY1976–FY2031, from OMB's Historical Tables. This is total agency budget authority — overwhelmingly mandatory (the nutrition-assistance entitlements, crop insurance, and the farm-commodity programs) — with sharp one-time spikes in farm-crisis and pandemic-relief years on top of the entitlement baseline.
FY2027 budget authority
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nominal · OMB estimate
Peak year
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Series span
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0 fiscal years
Years parsed
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contiguous, numeric — self-checked
USDA total budget authority — the arc
nominal (current $) · OMB Historical Table 5.2 · mandatory-dominatedReading the arc
USDA's arc is an entitlement baseline — nutrition assistance and farm-safety-net programs that grow with caseloads and farm conditions — punctuated by sharp one-time spikes when disaster and relief acts pour money through the Commodity Credit Corporation (the COVID-era surge being the most visible). Because the bulk of the growth is mandatory, a department-level monitor keeps it separate from the discretionary base Congress sets each year. This series is shown in nominal dollars: OMB's Historical Table 5.2 publishes no constant-dollar basis, and we do not synthesize one.