No tax incentives for new farmers, and less spending on conservation incentives than authorized

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama pledged to "provide tax incentives to make it easier for new farmers to afford their first farm" and said he would also "increase incentives for farmers and private landowners to conduct sustainable agriculture and protect wetlands, grasslands and forests."

Judging the first part of this promise -- tax incentives for new farmers -- is straightforward.

"He didn't propose any. Congress didn't pass any," said Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The second part -- increasing incentives for sustainable agriculture and protection of wetlands, grasslands and forests -- is a bit more complicated.

Looking at the raw dollar figures shows increases between fiscal years 2009 and 2012, followed by a dip in 2013 (though at a level higher than when Obama entered office). Here's the year-by-year funding for the Agriculture Department's "Farm Security and Rural Investment Programs," which include such programs as the Wetlands Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program:

Fiscal year 2009: $2.17 billion
Fiscal year 2010: $2.95 billion
Fiscal year 2011: $3.22 billion
Fiscal year 2012 (estimate): $3.57 billion
Fiscal year 2013 (estimate): $3.30 billion

That's a rather substantial increase: Even taking into account the projected decline in 2013, that's still better than a 50 percent increase since Obama took office.

But there's a catch.

These dollar figures are "mandatory funding" -- essentially an entitlement -- that were set by the 2008 Farm Bill, which was passed before Obama took office. Hoefner said that Obama's budgets have consistently called for lowering the increases mandated under the 2008 Farm Bill. So while the numbers have generally gone up under Obama, they've gone up by less than they might have otherwise.

"What the president's budget proposed was for the appropriators to go in and reduce funding already approved and paid for by the authorizers," Hoefner said. "The appropriators complied, to varying degrees in different years. … In essence, Agriculture Committee Farm Bill money was turned into Appropriations Committee money through a backdoor mechanism fully endorsed and prodded on by the Administration."

This part of the promise, then, saw steadily increasing expenditures, but at lower levels than were authorized.

Combining the failure to offer tax incentives for new farmers with efforts to pare back on funding levels set under his predecessor in the White House, we rate this a Promise Broken.