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December 18, 2007

Mulch: Farm Bill ripoff passes Senate, 79-14

And what a shameful abdication of leadership it represents.

If enacted, this bill will cause billions of dollars in federal subsidies to pour out to farms earning record net incomes. Billions of dollars will find their way to a narrow group of megafarms at the very top of the subsidy pyramid, taxpayers' money that they'll use to buy out tens of thousands of family farms beneath them. Billions more will go to farms that harvest disaster checks as often as they harvest crops.

The added funds for conservation and nutrition are mere down payments, at best, that will still leave most of the nation's agricultural resource and environmental challenges unaddressed, and America's poorest and hungriest underserved.

As for the sham reforms to limit subsidy payments to the biggest, richest farm operations in the country, EWG's online database of subsidy recipients will show in the years ahead just how outrageously the subsidy lobby and its defenders in the Senate have misled the American people.

Let me rephrase that: When politicians say this bill is going to significantly curb excessive subsidy payments to the wealthy, they're lying.

EWG has no intention of giving up the fight for a fair, equitable farm bill, starting with our next major update to the farm subsidy database, coming next month.

This entry was written by EWG President Ken Cook and was originally posted to his agricultural policy blog, Mulch. I thought Enviroblog readers who've been following the bill would appreciate knowing where it stands at the moment. --Ed.

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