Farm subsidy payments need revamping

An Associated Press review of USDA records turned up some appalling findings on who gets the bulk of federal farm subsidies.

The review found that almost two-thirds of the $27 billion in subsides doled out last year went to just 10 percent of America's farm owners. They included multimillion-dollar corporations and government agencies. At least 20 Fortune 500 companies and more than 1,200 universities and government farms, including prisons, received checks from federal programs.

The reason so many wealthy operations are getting money that should be going to small farmers who are in most need is because the subsidy payments are based on farm acreage rather than financial need. The bigger the farm, the more profitable the operation ... and the more federal money it gets.

The rules that base subsidies on acreage have been passed by Congress since 1996. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest farm group, supports the rules, but many individual farmers and other critics rightfully question a system that gives the country's biggest farmland owners the fattest checks. And there are no limits.

That was not and should not be the way a program touted to help needy farmers should operate, and changes must be made.