| The Environmental Working Group in mid-November 2001 unveiled the
first-ever publicly available, searchable Internet database of government
farm subsidy payment records.
The free database, at ewg.org, is
searchable by name, zip code, county, or municipality. It details how,
under the current farm programs that Congress is considering expanding,
taxpayer funds intended to help family farmers were instead awarded to the
largest agribusinesses and commodity growers.
Some significant findings in this study
- Two-thirds of the nations farmers, often residing in big ag
states in which livestock or non-commodity crops are raised, received
no federal aid whatsoever.
- Eighty percent of those eligible for the funds received an average
annual subsidy check of about $1,000.
- Nationwide, two-thirds of the funds went to just 10% of all eligible
recipients.
- The bulk of all commodity program money went to eight Great Plains
and Deep South states.
- Farm subsidy recipients get checks in virtually every zip code in
the country - including affluent neighborhoods in Americas biggest
cities.
- "Farmer" recipients include Fortune 500 companies, members
of Congress and celebrities.
Government payments allow big to get bigger
"Big government checks have enabled big producers to buy
neighbors farms and out-compete them in the farmland rental
markets," says the Environmental Working Groups report. "This
has helped fuel the increased concentration in agriculture long decried by
a group of Senators who are now advocating an expansion of these very same
programs."
The Bush Administration and newspaper editorial pages nationwide have
criticized the programs. A House bill passed in October would expand the
programs, locking in the inter- and intrastate inequities for another 10
years.
The Senate Agriculture Committee began writing the next Farm Bill in
early November and a group of Senators is pushing to lock in subsidy
inequities while committing taxpayers to spend $170 billion over the next
decade.
This approach, like that in the House, would short-change popular and
effective conservation programs, which provide environmental benefits
while distributing aid much more equitably across economic and regional
lines, says the report.
EWG assembled the database through multiple Freedom of Information Act
requests to the USDA. It includes 70 million records of farm subsidy
checks sent from 1996-2000, which have never been available online. |