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They also get some of the largest federal farm aid checks in Minnesota -- nearly $1 million last year for the five families in the Oberg Farm Partnership.

The Obergs represent a reality that critics will seize on in the coming weeks as Congress conducts a top-to-bottom review of farm subsidies: the biggest payments go to the biggest farmers.

But the Obergs are just one group among the more than 100,000 individuals and organizations that shared in the bounty of $1.5 billion in federal aid to Minnesota last year.

The recipients ranged from hobby farmers who got a few hundred dollars to wealthy businessmen such as Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, who got more than $230,000 last year for farmland he owns.

Minnesota members of Congress, Fortune 500 companies and downtown Minneapolis residents also received checks because they own farmland.

This month Congress is expected to confront the issue of whether to continue these payments or renew a so-far-unsuccessful effort to abandon subsidies, a goal that was at the heart of the "Freedom to Farm" law passed in 1996.

Congressional deliberations will affect taxpayers, who pumped $72 billion into the U.S. farm economy in the past five years, and consumers, who benefit from stable -- if not cheaper -- prices in the grocery store.

But those with the biggest stake in the outcome are farmers like Oberg, who says that low crop prices and Red River Valley flooding last year would have led to big financial losses if he hadn't received the federal aid, much of it disaster payments.

"I would rather see a good price than any subsidies and have less government involvement," Oberg, 59, said as he walked through a field of sugar beets on a recent afternoon. "But that is like wishing for something that's not going to happen."

Indeed, while Congress will debate how much to spend on farm aid and whether the right people are getting the money, the strong political support for farmers and a depressed Midwestern farm economy make it unlikely that the assistance will go away anytime soon.

Getting bigger

Critics of the system contend that the bulk of the taxpayers' money subsidizes large operations that produce corn, wheat, soybeans, rice and cotton. The result, they say, is a cycle of overabundance and low crop prices that lead to ever more subsidies.

More than half of the federal payments in Minnesota go to slightly more than 9,000 of the state's farms, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit advocacy organization that has analyzed federal records. Minnesota has 79,000 farms.

"We're promoting gigantic operations that are completely dependent on the government," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group. "The current system says, 'Get big, and we will reward you.'"

Cook advocates scaling back the larger farm payments and redirecting the money into programs that take environmentally sensitive land out of cultivation. Because most aid flows to a select few, he says, even capping annual payments at $25,000 would not reduce aid for three-fourths of Minnesota farmers.

Farm subsidies generally have no income requirements or asset limitations. They're based largely on acreage planted with subsidized crops in the past. In Minnesota, about 20 percent of the farms account for roughly 80 percent of production and farm income.

The big commercial farms, naturally, get the big checks.

"People are getting farm payments across the board," said Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson, whose 600-acre farm in Martin County got nearly $60,000 in federal subsidies last year. "I'm not going to advocate that that's not the way it should be. It gets a little dicey if government starts deciding that somebody should get payments and somebody else shouldn't."

The biggest farms, like the Obergs', also represent the biggest capital investments in land, fuel, fertilizer, seed and equipment. After Oberg's accountant figured in those costs, last year's down market meant that without the federal payments Oberg would have made no profit.

"We're not getting wealthy," Oberg said. "Obviously, we have a lot of debt here because of the size. That's the only way it's worked for us."

He's hardly alone. Until the bottom fell out of the worldwide grain markets in 1998, government payments generally accounted for a third to a half of net farm income in Minnesota. But in 1999, government payments reached $1.25 billion, nearly matching the $1.29 billion the state's farmers reported in net income.

The trend appears to have continued into 2000 and is expected to hold up for this year. What that means, said Mike Hunst, director of the state's Agricultural Statistics Service, is that "if it wasn't for the government payments, there wouldn't be any farm income."

Farming on the side

Political support for farm subsidies, which date to the Great Depression, trades on a widespread and deep-seated sympathy for sustaining rural America.

But current formulas based on investment and land ownership -- rather than need -- have produced an odd array of beneficiaries for whom farming is, at most, a sideline.

For instance, Timberwolves owner Taylor, ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 159th richest American with a net worth of more than $1.5 billion, received $542,265 in subsidies between 1996 and 2000 from land he owns in Minnesota and Iowa.

Over the same period:

3M Co. got $27,152 in subsidies for farmland adjacent to company plants in Iowa and Missouri.

The Salvation Army got $113,081 on land it owns in Minnesota and other states, most of it donated from the estates of farmers and other benefactors.

Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., got $20,395, and Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., got $9,035, both for properties they own in North Dakota.

The University of Minnesota was paid $498,501 on farmland it owns in eight counties, including its crop research center in Rosemount.

In addition, more than $9.6 million was paid to 906 recipients in Minneapolis, including the Minnesota Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, Wells Fargo & Co., Northern States Power Co. (now Xcel Energy Inc.), at least two hunting clubs and a number of residents of high-end homes on Lake of the Isles and Kenwood parkways.

Taylor, a former state Senate Republican leader from Mankato, said that he's entitled to do business by the same rules as everyone else. "The only [farm] programs we use are the ones that are out there for anyone," he said.

Taylor said his farm investments have helped a half dozen young farmers get started by sharing the costs and risks of farming. Moreover, he said his wealth has enabled him to put more land into conservation programs than many struggling farmers who need to cultivate as much land as they can.

But University of Minnesota economist C. Ford Runge has a term for big payments to big investors: corporate welfare. "The levels of excess payments to big producers are shameful," he said. "They're a reward for land ownership."

No strings attached

The 1996 Freedom to Farm Act, a signature piece of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution, was supposed to free farmers of production controls set in Washington. Farmers would be free to plant what they wanted; in exchange, they would have to wade into the choppy waters of the free market.

Farm subsidies would be substantially phased out by 2002. To help make the transition, farmers would be paid fixed but declining payments based on past production.

Since then, however, foreign competition and a worldwide glut of grain has brought grain prices to historic lows. Price-support mechanisms kicked into high gear, and "emergency" aid packages became the order of the day.

Instead of declining, farm aid has more than tripled since 1996.

Altogether, government agricultural subsidies in Minnesota came to more than $4.4 billion between 1996 and 2000, ranking the state sixth in the nation behind other big Farm Belt states such as Iowa and Illinois. The payments come from a melange of programs, including income-support aid when crop prices drop, conservation incentives and disaster relief.

Big-volume farmers say it's a struggle even with the payments. "We wouldn't have an economy in rural Minnesota if we didn't have farmers getting these payments," said Mike Johnston, general manager of Mid-Valley Grain of Crookston, a subsidiary of the Cenex Harvest States farmers co-op.

"It might be hard for the people in the cities to understand what all these payments are, but it's going to keep the farm operations going because the market isn't paying farmers what they need."

Said Al Christopherson, a Kandiyohi County corn, soybean and hog producer who heads the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation: "Farm payments are an important part of any farm operator's liquidity in recent years. They're important to keep producers going and to keep the farm economy going."

Christopherson, who received more than $100,000 in payments last year, agrees, however, that the subsidies -- combined with narrow profit margins -- have encouraged farm growth and consolidation, as farmers plow the money back into ever bigger operations.

"We need more land to make our equipment cost-efficient, then we need more equipment to farm a larger spread," he said.

Every year there are fewer, but bigger, farms in Minnesota. Since 1989, the number of farms in Minnesota has declined from 90,000 to 79,000, while the average farm size has grown from 333 acres to 362.

Meanwhile, even subsidy supporters acknowledge that government payments have inflated the cost of farmland.

Critics say that has left taxpayers to foot the bill for a spiraling cycle of overproduction, low commodity prices and government dependence. "The big question is, does this look like a situation that works so well we want to keep it in place for the next 10 years?" said Cook, of the Environmental Working Group. "It's not sustainable."

The payoff for the taxpayer-as-consumer is commonly assumed to be lower food prices at the check-out counter. It is true, according to Minnesota State Economist Tom Stinson, that removing subsidies could reduce production. And if already-smaller crops were further reduced by bad weather, that could result in food price spikes.

But subsidies are also inflationary, Stinson said, giving farmers more money to spend on land and equipment. Their net effect, he said, may be to provide stability, smoothing out fluctuating markets and the vagaries of weather.

"With food prices, it's removed some of the volatility," said Stinson, who has a family wheat farm in Washington state and receives a small amount of farm aid.

Farming for subsidies

Drive down almost any road near Glyndon, Minn., and you'll see the fields of beets, potatoes, wheat, corn and alfalfa that Ernie Oberg, his wife Wilma Jean and their four grown sons farm.

"We've been able to weather things that farmers who are not as well established have not been able to weather," said Oberg, who grew up on a 400-acre farm just north of Moorhead. "It's tough. The [profit] margins ... are so small that you have to expand."

The Obergs now farm about 10,000 acres, two-thirds of it rented land. "You've got to have a lot of acres to make anything," he said. Their gleaming fleet of equipment includes four combines and 27 tractors. They store their grain in 34 bins, holding it in hopes of getting a better price.

Wheat can draw about $2.80 per bushel in the Moorhead area. But at that price, the farmers aren't getting anything back on their investment. The consumer pays more for the plastic wrapper than for the wheat that goes into the bread, Oberg said.

So despite a massive operation with 27 employees, it's only with government subsidies that they've been able to survive, he said.

Flooding and potato blight led to major losses for the Obergs in the past two years. Because of that, they received a total of $543,495 in government disaster payments for 1999 and 2000. This year, the Obergs have not experienced any crop disasters and won't receive any government disaster payments.

Still, farming for subsidies is just a fact of life in rural communities, Oberg said: "That's how it's going to be."