ABSTRACT
The subgovernment concept and related ideas such as the 'iron triangle' have fallen into disrepute. It became widely accepted that subgovernment or iron triangles had given way to less bounded, more fluid issue networks. Agriculture had entered a depression as soon as the First World War had ended. Farmers' organizations, particularly the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) had campaigned for government measures to secure a return to 'parity' — the ratio between farm and non-farm income that had prevailed in the last peace time period of farm prosperity in 1911-12. The AFBF played a major role in the creation of the New Deal agricultural programs that in general terms remained in place until 1996. The changes in the nature of agricultural subsidy politics that have occurred over the last seventy years or so may well have broader implications for understanding the American State.
