Policy Priorities
Drive Rural Prosperity
Right-Size and Reorient Government
Generate Responsible Nutrition Policy

The America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Farmers First Agenda is foundational to our prospective rural policy work. Uniquely crafted by individuals with real-world farming and policy experience, the Farmers First Agenda provides rural Americans with peace of mind that AFPI has their best interests at heart. AFPI is working to ensure rural America is prosperous and healthy again, which is important because our rural communities are responsible for providing a reliable, abundant, and affordable domestic food supply to our great Nation and the world.
President Abraham Lincoln once said that “no other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought as agriculture” (Lincoln, 1859).
As we approach the 250th anniversary of American Independence in 2026, we are reminded that agriculture and subsistence farming are foundational to the United States, as these were primary professions at the time of our Nation’s founding. As the population expanded into the great American frontier, farmers and smallholders rose to the occasion by both fulfilling demand in the domestic market and by generating exports, especially after Industrialization. Farmers faced excruciating hardship when the Dust Bowl coincided with the Great Depression, serving as the major impetus for establishing programs that protect highly erodible soil and conserve water. Modernizations in farming techniques, along with new agricultural policies in Washington, D.C., have afforded our farmers more prosperous future decades. In a sentence: The faith, grit, adeptness, and determination of the American farmer have always carried the profession forward.
Team
Latest
Polling Summary: Support For Stronger Guardrails In SNAP Regarding Income & Asset Tests, Citizenship, And Work Requirements
Comment Opposing Surrender and Decommission of the Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project, Project No. 77-332
Time To End The Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility Loophole In SNAP
Today, one in eight Americans depend on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. When the national media focused on the implications of the recent 43-day government funding lapse for SNAP, it also exposed just how the bloated SNAP has become and how it has shifted away from supporting self-sufficiency towards fostering government dependency.
State Agency Overreach Harms Michigan’s Farms and Businesses
Michigan’s farmers and rural landowners are the backbone of the state’s economy and identity. They provide food, jobs, and a way of life that has helped define America’s heartland. At America First Policy Institute, we champion policies that put these producers first. But Michigan’s farmers argue that state agencies’ actions reveal a troubling pattern of flexing regulatory muscle rather than protecting the environment or supporting Michigan’s rural communities.
State Policymakers Can End Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility in SNAP
Administered by the U.S Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, is the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program that provides monthly benefits to low-income households to supplement their grocery budgets.
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