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GAO still has concerns with USDA’s payment oversight review process
The U.S. Government Accountability Office says it still has concerns with USDA’s oversight review process on farm program payments.
In 2013, GAO found weaknesses in how USDA’s Farm Service Agency assessed whether payment recipients were actively engaged in farming. GAO says USDA has improved its compliance reviews since then, but there is still room for improvement.
GAO recommends that FSA do more and better interviews to determine whether farming operation members are actively engaged. It says FSA also needs to improve the accuracy and monitoring of its tracking system for those compliance reviews.
Why bother when land ownership automatically qualifies as actively engaged in farming. That alone puts the majority of farmers in that category.