Opinion: Cutting pork in farm subsidies

Call it the little Web site that could. A searchable list of farm subsidies compiled by the Environmental Working Group has helped to shame some senators into killing a farm bill that had enjoyed sacred-cow status.

The list provides fresh examples of outrages for bill opponents, who argue that the subsidies Congress supposedly earmarks for struggling farms more often pad the pockets of the wealthiest growers -- along with some city slickers who do little if any crop-tending at all. Among the chief recipients are several Fortune 500 companies, such as International Paper, Chevron and Caterpillar. Also on the federal dole are lobbyists for major farm groups, a former Miss America, former Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller and former Washington Post editor Benjamin C. Bradlee. Hardly your overall-wearing crowd.

Since the database went live in November, those beneficiaries who had received their federal checks in secret, all the while crying poor, have cried foul. "To see my subsidies on that site was just like me being seen totally naked at a school reunion," one victim of the new openness lamented in an online forum. "Something has to be done about that site, because it is very embarrassing."

Congress' energy would be better directed toward changing the policies that make the site's numbers so shameful.

This year's farm bill was bloated with subsidies and larded with Congress members' pet projects. It represented nearly total abandonment of the idea that drove the last farm bill -- weaning growers from subsidies. Indeed, EWG showed that federal payments comprised the bulk of many farmers' income. Worse, the rotten core of the bill survived challenges that at least would have divided the money more equitably and reserved a share for growers who use their land for conservation purposes. Still, despite opposition from the White House, the subsidies sailed through the House and were headed for easy passage in the Senate.

Then came www.EWG.org. The list of agricultural welfare recipients gave senators new ammunition in the debate. Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, for example, found that 66 percent of his state's farm subsidies went to just 10 percent of the eligible farmers there. Now, a vote on the measure will have to wait until after the holiday recess.

During the break, members of Congress members should use the newly accessible information to illustrate how skewed our agriculture priorities have become. Then they should return with the resolve to shape a more sensible and equitable plan. The EWG database is no Harvest of Shame, but it should help sow the seeds of reform when Congress reconvenes.

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