Corporate Farming's Best Friend (How the Poor Protect Agribusiness's Subsidies)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102101372_pf.html

By Elizabeth Becker
Monday, October 22, 2007; A23

This was the year the antiquated and expensive farm subsidy program was to be reformed.

A growing chorus has turned against the $16 billion annual subsidy, which gives most of the money to corporate farms rather than the small farmers for whom the program was designed during the Depression.

Major business lobbies, including numerous Fortune 500 companies, attacked the program because it is blocking a multibillion-dollar global trade deal.

International charities opposed the program because it undermines poor foreign farmers, who can't compete against subsidized American crops, an argument that swayed the global trade court to rule against one of the subsidies.

Environmentalists want the program changed because it rewards farmers who are among the nation's biggest water polluters.

Parents worried about obese children, and the growing cult of foodies -- from celebrity chefs to urbanites newly addicted to full-flavored tomatoes -- made impassioned pleas for the money to go toward local and organic produce.

Longtime critics have made public the subsidy payments, showing that most of the money goes to 150,000 big corporate farmers, further hastening the death of small family farms.

FULL story at link.