The 2008 Farm Act established or modified several USDA farm
programs to increase the participation of beginning
farmers/ranchers, women and minority principal operators (so-called
socially disadvantaged farmers), and limited-resource farmers
(based on their low farm sales and household income, see the glossary for
detailed definitions). Though not all Titles of the 2008 Farm Act
address the needs of all these "targeted" groups, provisions appear
in Title I (Commodities), Title II (Conservation), Title V
(Credit), Title VI (Rural Development), Title VII (Research), Title
IX (Energy), Title XII (Crop Insurance), Title XIV (Miscellaneous),
and Title XV (Trade and Tax Provisions). See Provisions for Traditionally Underserved
Groups in an archived version of the 2008 Farm Bill
Side-By-Side.
These three targeted groups overlap somewhat. Combined, they
represent 40 percent of all farms (see the table for general characteristics of the
combined targeted populations 
.
Because they are more likely than other farm households to operate
small farms, they account for a smaller share of the value of
production (15 percent in 2011). They are also less likely to
receive direct government farm payments than other farms.