And apparently Yolo County is part of the action.

A database of 2.5 million farmers and landowners who have received farm subsidies is available online for the first time through a Web site operated by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that compiled the numbers from government records.

The data showed that about 1,839 farms in Yolo County received subsidies between 1996 and 2000, which totaled about $93.1 million. Of those, 1,213 farms received subsides in 2000, totaling about $24.8 million.

Woodland farms receiving subsidies include Doering Farms, Frelen Company, Wallace Ranches, Eaton Brothers, and Perry's Kiwi.

Lists of recipients also were compiled by The Associated Press and published in newspapers around the country this fall. Those lists showed that rice growers in Yolo County and the Sacramento region as a whole were most likely to receive subsidies.

"The numbers are right, for crying out loud. The effect was astonishing on the farming community," said John Phipps, who grows corn and soybeans near Chrisman, Ill.

Phipps, who received $320,575 over the past five years, including $147,656 in 2000, says the records have forced farmers to confront how much government money they - and their neighbors, relatives and landowners - are getting. He thinks the subsidies are excessive and have fostered dependence on the government.

"Guys are sensitive about how big their farms are," he said. "They will talk about their prostate operation, but they don't want to talk about their numbers."

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman says she has logged onto the Environmental Working Group's Web site and looked up recipients. Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican who is critical of existing farm programs, has repeatedly promoted the site during meetings of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

The numbers also have been hot topics this fall at meetings of farm organizations.

Congress is in the middle of an extensive revision of farm and conservation programs that will expire next year.

The Environmental Working Group has argued for years that farm spending is skewed to a small number of large grain and cotton farms and that more money should be put into conservation program.

The database "opened up the farm bill debate to a lot more media attention than there would have been otherwise," said Ken Cook, the group's president. "That provided us the opportunity in that debate to make our case."

There have been 7 million searches of the Web site, initiated by 140,000 different users, since it was opened to the public Nov. 6, according to Cook's group. Some 3,600 different computers at the Agriculture Department have logged on the site.

For years, the department refused to release the names of subsidy recipients, citing privacy concerns. The Washington Post sued the department to force their disclosure and a judge decided in 1996 that the names were public records. The Clinton administration did not appeal.

Cook's group "has angered farmers by invading their privacy in disclosing financial information," the American Farm Bureau Federation's Lynne Finnerty wrote in a recent organization newsletter. "Attacking farmers, large or small, is not the answer to environmental problems."

It remains to be seen whether the data significantly affect the congressional debate over farm policy.

An important issue is whether to raise or lower limits on subsidies that individual farmers or landowners can collect. Under a bill the Senate will vote on this week, farms still could collect crop subsidies in unlimited amounts, and could get an additional $200,000 in payments annually in two other income-support programs.

The Bush administration has been largely silent on the issue of payment limits but has argued strenuously that too much money is going to large farms that need it the least.

"It's hard to tell about the impact" of the data, Veneman said. "I don't see it in Congress."