Down on the farm, the rich get richer: hundreds of millions of dollars in federal farm subsidies go to city and state governments, while many small farmers and ranchers who apply to the program get nothing

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 15, 2002 | by George Archibald

During the last six years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) doled out crop subsidies to 413 local governments, 44 state universities and 14 state prison systems. "This in the long haul is undermining our free-market system," says Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Pork Busters Coalition. "They sent out 22 million checks. It causes overproduction and drives up land rents. You have people looking at an opportunity for what they themselves can acquire."

But according to USDA spokesman Dan Stewart, the Farm Service Agency, which doles out the money, is required to subsidize governmental entities. "There are city governments and state governments, that own farmland," he says. "They receive farm payments just like any individual or corporation that owns land to produce crops. We're obligated to make them."

Critics complain that municipal and state governments are getting subsidies intended for struggling small farmers in the private sector. Creative local planners have found many ways to tap into the federal program. The city of St. Louis, for example, received $84,536 from 1996 to 2001, according to Ken Cook, president of the Washington-based Environmental Working Group (EWG), which collects data on the program.

"The city of St. Louis bought land for flood control north of the city, on the floodplain," Cook says. "They wanted to not have it built. Meanwhile, it qualified for the corn-subsidy program. It had a tenant farmer enrolled. It was a good business transaction for them. They got the money." But the money didn't help working farmers. "It ends up having taxpayers give money to people who own the right land," Cook says.

INSIGHT'S sister daily, the Washington Times, analyzed the EWG data and found numerous similar examples. Among its discoveries:

* Many state and private universities and schools use their agriculture programs and even foundations unrelated to farming to get millions of dollars from the farm-support program. The University of Arizona, Iowa State University and Texas Tech University all got $1.2 million during a six-year period, for example. Illinois Wesleyan University got $727,135. Indiana Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school in Cicero, got $109,334. The Iowa Academy of Science in Mason City received $84,483.

* Fifty-eight city governments in Kansas collectively got $431,769; 31 cities in Illinois, $313,656; 31 Missouri cities, $508,860; 26 Iowa cities, $344,846; 17 Oklahoma cities and towns, $491,068. In the West, where billions of federal dollars previously paid for irrigation projects that turned desert into farmland, California's Reclamation District No. 108 in Grimes found a way to collect $322,116 in crop subsidies.

* Even airports and historical societies are at the trough: Walla Walla Regional Airport in Washington state got $67,222; Idaho County Airport in Grangeville, Idaho, $6,612; and Iowa City Airport, Iowa, $805. The Nebraska State Historical Society got $31,919; the Kansas State Historical Society, $6,453; the State Historical Society of Iowa, $3,392; and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, $1,010.

President George W. Bush lobbied for a new farm bill that emphasized conservation programs as a way to reduce subsidies and resulting crop overproduction that has driven thousands of small farmers out of business. But the president relented to farming special interests and members of Congress from powerful farm states and signed a new six-year $248.6 subsidy bill.