All of these stories referenced environmental concerns EWG raised about the corn rush, notwithstanding our support for a sustainable biofuels economy.

Phillip Brasher in this morning's Des Moines Register, "What the Corn Rush Means To You":

With grain prices soaring, U.S. farmers are set to seed more land to corn this spring than at any time since 1944, when the government was pressing growers to alleviate wartime food shortages.

Farmers intend to plant 90.5 million acres of corn this spring, a 15 percent increase from 2006, according to a widely anticipated report issued Friday by the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Barring bad weather, that's good news for everyone from grocery shoppers to ethanol producers and hog farmers, because the big crop would help moderate prices for corn and food.

U.S. farmers have faced an international backlash over surging grain and food prices, brought on by the nation's booming fuel ethanol industry. Critics, from meatpackers to environmentalists, have warned that the United States cannot fuel the country's cars while keeping food prices affordable to the poor.

Brasher also mentioned the Mulch contest to guess corn acreage--which, by the way, we'll run again for USDA's June plantings report.

Andy Martin in today's New York Times, a story that fronted the business section and was teased with big color pic of Mississippi corn farmers Webb Bozeman and Justin Tichner getting ready for some nighttime planting ("Farmers Head To Fields To Plant Corn, Lots of It"):

With corn prices expected to weaken, at least temporarily, the report should ease concerns about increases in food costs, which had recently started to tick upward. Corn is primarily used to feed livestock, and some farmers have complained that ethanol is pushing feed corn prices too high.

“We still have some optimism that we will have enough corn,” said Joy Philippi, immediate past president of the National Pork Producers Council. “Everything is going to hit just perfect.

“It looks good today, but we’ll know more in June or July,” said Ms. Philippi, a Nebraska farmer who told a Congressional panel this month that hog farmers were worried that they would not have enough corn because of the demands by ethanol plants.

Pete Harriman and Ben Shouse in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, "Corn acres at record-high level: Land devoted to planting spikes 9 percent in S.D.":

South Dakota farmers will plant 400,000 acres more of corn this year. The new report projects 4.9 million acres of corn planting in the state in 2007.

South Dakota is projected to plant 3.6 million acres of soybeans, down from 3.95 million in 2006. Winter wheat seeded last fall is up 31 percent to 1.9 million acres, whereas spring wheat planting is forecast to decline 14 percent to 1.6 million acres.

Chuck Abbott reported for Reuters:

Based on a survey of 86,000 farmers earlier this month, the Agriculture Department projected corn (maize) plantings of 90.454 million acres, which would be the largest acreage since 1944.

With normal weather and yields, the harvest would be 12.5 billion bushels (317 million tonnes) -- 700 million bushels more than the record set in 2004.

"With a medium yield, we could get just about enough corn in the year ahead," said private consultant John Schnittker.

Looks like I won't be sending that CRP letter on Monday after all (hat tip to Chuck Abbott at Reuters).

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

STATEMENT BY AGRICULTURE SECRETARY MIKE JOHANNS REGARDING THE CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM

March 30, 2007

"Today's report on planting intentions suggests that market forces are inspiring changes that will help to meet the high demand for corn. According to the report, U.S. farmers intend to plant 15 percent more corn acres, 90.5 million acres, in 2007. This would be an increase of 12 million acres over 2006 and the largest number since 1944.

"In light of this information, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will not offer penalty-free early releases from Conservation Reserve Program contracts at this time. As circumstances exist today, I would not anticipate a change in this policy in 2007..."

Weston Lewis, who came within 500,000 acres of guessing the corn acreage in today's prospective plantings report from USDA. Mr. Lewis, congratulations. You are King Corn. Our very own Chris Campbell, Master of the EWG Farm Subsidy Database, came in a close second. He is inconsolable.

Call us at 202.667.6982 or email gillian@ewg.org so we can send you this fabulous prize.

USDA Report: Corn Plantings
May be Highest Since World War II

Statement of Ken Cook
President, Environmental Working Group

EWG has been a consistent supporter of sustainable biofuels production, including ethanol.

But this morning's stunning USDA announcement that American farmers intend to plant over 90 million acres of corn this spring—more acreage than has been planted to the crop since World War II—should be a wake up call to policy makers.

Dramatic expansion of corn production for the ethanol industry has profound environmental implications that are being almost entirely ignored in Washington. It's one thing to have an ethanol boom in the Corn Belt. An ethanol blow-out is another thing altogether.

* Corn receives heavier applications of nitrogen fertilizer than any other major crop. Adding ten million additional acres of corn will result in a substantial increase in water pollution from nitrogen fertilizer run-off throughout the Corn Belt, the main contributor to the the "dead zone" that encompasses 5,000 to 8,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico every spring. Cities like Des Moines are also already spending large sums to remove excessive nitrate from their tap water.
* Energy independence is about more than trading foreign oil for domestic ethanol. America is already a net importer of nitrogen fertilizer. Heavier use of nitrogen fertilizer on corn will mean heavier reliance on foreign suppliers.
* More corn also means more pesticides, weed killers in particular, probably in excess of 15 million more pounds applied this spring. That will include millions more pounds of Atrazine, a chemical that contaminates drinking water sources for nearly every major city in the Midwest. Again, water utilities will bear the cost of cleaning up this water.
* The expansion of corn acreage will also increase demands on groundwater used for irrigation, particularly if we have below-average moisture later in the growing season.
* We are also concerned that farmers in some areas will be expanding corn production at the expense of wildlife habitat. On Monday, EWG will write Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to urge him not to allow 'early out' to holders of long-term Conservation Reserve Program contracts without repayment of rental and cost-sharing funds that have been provided in good faith by taxpayers in expectation of long term benefits to wildlife and the environment.
* Cellulosic ethanol theoretically is promising in some respects from an environmental standpoint. But it remains the biofuel equivalent of 'vapor ware' in the computer industry. We have seen plenty of expensive research proposals, but no firm, practical plan that will bring about a sustainable transition from corn-starch to cellulosic ethanol.

Up until now, ethanol policy has been little more than a political bidding war. Policy makers are outdoing one another to propose the biggest, fastest expansion of subsidies, and the most aggressive federal mandate to produce more ethanol and put more of it in our gas guzzling automobile fleet.

It's past time for policy makers to pay serious attention to the profound environmental side effects of the ethanol boom.

This is, quite literally, huge. Here it is, straight from USDA just minutes ago.

We'll name the King Corn cap winner later this morning.

Prospective Plantings

National Agricultural Statistics Service
USDA
Washington, D.C.

Released March 30, 2007, by the National Agricultural Statistics
Service (NASS), Agricultural Statistics Board, U.S. Department of
Agriculture. For information on "Prospective Plantings" call
(202) 720-2127, office hours 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.

Corn Planted Acreage Up 15 Percent from 2006
Soybean Acreage Down 11 Percent
All Wheat Acreage Up 5 Percent
All Cotton Acreage Down 20 Percent

Corn growers intend to plant 90.5 million acres of corn for all
purposes in 2007, up 15 percent from 2006 and 11 percent higher
than 2005. If realized this would be the highest acreage since
1944, when 95.5 million acres were planted for all purposes.
Expected acreage is up in nearly all States as high corn prices are
encouraging farmers to plant more acres to corn. The increase in
intended corn acres is partially offset by lower expected acres of
soybeans in the Corn Belt and Great Plains and fewer expected acres
of cotton and rice in the Delta and Southeast. Illinois farmers intend
to plant a record high 12.9 million acres of corn this spring, up
1.60 million acres from last year. North Dakota and Minnesota
growers also expect to plant record high corn acres, up 910,000 and
600,000 acres, respectively.

Soybean producers intend to plant 67.1 million acres in 2007, down
11 percent from last year. If realized, this will be the lowest
planted area since 1996. Acreage decreases are expected in all
growing areas, except in New York and the Southeast. Large
decreases in soybean acreage are expected across the Corn Belt,
with the largest decline expected in Illinois, down 1.40 million
acres from 2006. However, area planted to soybeans is expected to
increase in the Southeast, with Georgia expecting the largest
increase from last year at 95,000 acres. Planted acreage in New
York is expected to be the largest on record at 210,000 acres.

All wheat planted area is estimated at 60.3 million acres, up
5 percent from 2006. The 2007 winter wheat planted area, at
44.5 million acres, is 10 percent above last year and up 1 percent
from the previous estimate. Of this total, about 31.9 million
acres are Hard Red Winter, 8.66 million acres are Soft Red Winter,
and 3.92 million acres are White Winter. Area planted to other
spring wheat for 2007 is expected to total 13.8 million acres, down
7 percent from 2006. Of this total, about 13.3 million acres are
Hard Red Spring wheat. The intended Durum planted area for 2007 is
1.99 million acres, up 6 percent from the previous year.

All cotton plantings for 2007 are expected to total 12.1 million
acres, 20 percent below last year. Upland acreage is expected to
total 11.9 million, down 21 percent from last year and the lowest
since 1989. Growers intend to decrease planted area in all States
with the largest acreage declines in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana,
North Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas. American-Pima cotton
growers intend to decrease their plantings by 10 percent from 2006,
to 292,000 acres. California producers expect to plant
250,000 acres, down 9 percent from last year's record high.

This report was approved on March 30, 2007.
Secretary of
Agriculture
Mike Johanns

Full report:
http://www.usda.gov/nass/PUBS/TODAYRPT/pspl0307.txt

Tomorrow morning at 7:30 central time USDA will announce the results of its prospective plantings survey, which asks growers about their planting intentions this spring.

It's the most anticipated USDA crop report in years.

The big question: given the ethanol boom and the highest corn prices we've seen in many years, just how much corn do U.S. farmers say they'll plant this season?

The first person with the closest guess to the NASS estimate will win a fabulous, genuine "King Corn" gimme cap, named after the newly released film.

What's your guess?

Contest closes midnight ET.

The mounting furor over potential violations of the Hatch Act by one of Karl Rove's deputies and the head of the agency that does the federal government's buying (GSA) reminds me of a controversy that erupted at USDA during the Clinton administration--and which was aggressively pursued both by the Justice Department and the Republican Congress.

The question is, will Republicans be as diligent in ferreting out potential Hatch Act violations in the Bush administration as they were when Clinton was in the White House?

And one wonders if any of the government employees attending GSA chief Lurita Doan's "team building" lunch at the GSA subsequently received on the job favors after the brown bag discussion of the House and Senate seats Karl Rove has targeted to take back Congress.

From Think Progress.

In January, General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan and Karl Rove deputy Scott Jennings held a video conference with top GSA political appointees, “who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.”

During a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing today, Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) questioned Doan about the contents of Rove’s PowerPoint presentation. Doan repeatedly claimed ignorance of the contents of the slides and the verbal presentation that Jennings made. So Braley reminded her with some examples from this “nonpartisan” briefing...

From the LA Times of May 2, 1995:

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into allegations that senior Agriculture Department employees illegally raised campaign funds from co-workers to support candidate Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential bid and that donors were subsequently rewarded with more desirable jobs.

In addition, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) has informed Justice officials that he plans oversight hearings this summer to explore whether the fund raising violated federal laws and whether any employment moves under the Democratic Administration were linked to the contributions.

The proceedings on both fronts could pose a new ethical embarrassment for an Administration that already faces investigations by three court-appointed independent counsels.

As part of the inquiry, FBI agents are questioning Agriculture Department officials about fund raising for the Farmers & Ranchers '92 PAC, which spent much of its money on behalf of Clinton's campaign, and about personnel moves that may be related. A total of 38 high-ranking Civil Service employees in the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, then the nation's major domestic farm aid program, made donations. Most ranged from $50 to $500.

Ultimately three USDA employees plead guilty to soliciting and accepting Clinton campaign contributions from fellow employees.

More from that LA Times story below the fold.

It's a question I regularly hear in my numerous meetings with farmers--usually from a guy in the back of the room, his arms folded in pique, his tone defensive, not to say indignant. We get asked online, too, owing, no doubt, to the fact that the Food Stamp Program costs taxpayers even more ($28.6 billion in FY 2005, serving 25.7 million people monthly) than farm subsidies cost most years. Subsidy proponents, in particular, like to point out that the Food Stamp Program is the single biggest ticket item in the farm bill.

The question of who is receiving food stamps might be of policy interest if the benefits that taxpayers provide under the program varied as dramatically as they do under the farm subsidy programs; but they don't. Some of the most important questions in farm policy arise precisely from the vast disparities we see across farm subsidy recipients, due to differences in what they produce (most farmers collecting no subsidies); farm size; and questions surrounding the income and wealth of the recipients (questions our database cannot answer).

But there are no mysteries or surprises on these scores for the Food Stamp Program. Everyone gets roughly the same amount (within a narrow range determined by income and a few deductible expense), we know how much it is (and it's not much), and we know the recipients officially are very poor (see below). This year each Food Stamp Program participant will get about $1.05 cents a meal--and it's falling. No food stamp program participant receives $10.50, $1,050, $10,500 or $105,000 per meal. When poverty and unemployment rates go up, so do the food stamp rolls.

In fact, the average food stamp benefit per household in 2005 was $209 per month--about twenty five hundred bucks a year. Again, no food stamp household gets $25,000, $50,000 or $250,000...and so forth per year. Ironically enough, that 2005 average for food stamp households is just slightly more than the bottom 80 percent of farm subsidy recipients averaged in (calendar) 2005. But Congress has hardly favored food stamps over farm subsidies in recent years--far from it.

There is, of course, the matter of waste, fraud and abuse, which should not be tolerated in any government program. But USDA generally is considered to have been more vigilant about waste, fraud and abuse in the Food Stamp Program than it has been in its scrutiny of farm subsidies. In the case of food stamps, most of the payment "error" arises from case workers, not applicants, and those errors commonly result in underpayment of benefits.

If you'd prefer a video version of the Food Stamp Program, its history, integrity, and bi-partisan support, see this fine short feature produced for the leading authority on the Food Stamp Program, our friends at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Here are some other things we know from USDA's research about food stamp recipients as of fiscal year 2005:

Most food stamp recipients were children or elderly. Half (50 percent) were children and another 8 percent were age 60 or older.

Many food stamp recipients worked. Nearly three out of ten (29 percent) food stamp households had earnings in 2005, and four out of ten (40 percent) participants lived in households with earnings.

The majority of food stamp households did not receive cash welfare benefits. Only 15 percent of all food stamp households received TANF benefits. That's a big change from 1990, when 42 percent of all households received cash welfare benefits and only 19 percent had earnings. Twenty-seven percent received Supplemental Security Income. Almost one quarter (23 percent) received Social Security benefits.

Less than 12 percent of food stamp households had incomes above the poverty line--which is $20,600 for a family of four this year and was $19,350 in 2005--while 40 percent had incomes at or below half the poverty line.

The average food stamp household possessed only about $137 in countable resources (including the non-excluded portion of vehicles and the entire value of checking and savings accounts and other savings). Over two thirds (70 percent) had no countable resources. Compare that with just one measure of the economic standing of households receiving farm subsidies: household income.

Of course, if assets were taken into account, the comparison between food stamp and farm subsidy households becomes even more ludicrously strained.

Finally, most food stamp households were small--average size being 2.3 people.

A second reason for not posting food stamp recipients is that they meet the exemption test of the Freedom of Information Act because the program is means tested: applicants must demonstrate they do not exceed the brutally low financial threshold for program eligibility. A family of four, for instance, can't have a gross monthly income above $2,167, or a net monthly income above the poverty line ($1,667).

As Judge Paul Friedman put it, ruling in favor of disclosing the names of cotton subsidy recipients to The Washington Post in 1996 (the legal basis for the EWG Farm Subsidy Database):

None of the information at issue in this case is stigmatizing, embarrassing or dangerous; it does not expose these cotton farmers to creditors; and it reveals nothing about the success or failure of the farm or the wealth or poverty of the recipient. By contrast, Judge Penn withheld the names of individuals who had defaulted on their student loans because of the highly sensitive nature of that very piece of information, namely, the fact that the person defaulted.

Under FOIA, the names of food stamp recipients would be 'highly sensitive' because that information would reveal their low income status. As farm subsidy recipients often take pains to emphasize, their government payments are not welfare but rather a business arrangement with the government. No one has to prove that they have any financial need whatsoever in order to collect farm subsidies, because there is no test of need. The only "means test" is that subsidy applicants come in under $2.5 million in adjusted gross income annually, the so-called "Charles Schwab" provision of the 2002 Farm Bill. If most of that income comes from agriculture, however, even that 'restriction' does not apply. It has disqualified almost no one.

Of course, the Bush administration's proposal to limit farm subsidies to those earning less than $200,000 adjusted gross income (income after all regular and business deductions) introduces the very notion the subsidy lobby wishes to avoid: targeting subsidies to family farms based on need, and a rather generous test of need at that, since fewer than 3 percent of all taxpayers file returns with AGIs above $200,000.

Perhaps the subsidy lobby will embrace an income test in the hope of evading FOIA disclosure. Now there's a debate worth joining...

BTW: Here's Friedman's ruling in full, and the key passages are in the jump.

By the end of this movie, you'll understand an enormous amount about why America is the way it is. Funny, wise, powerful--it's the other end of the 'Supersize Me' story and every bit as compelling."--Bill McKibben

The film shows at 1 p.m. at the Avalon Theatre in Washington. Admisssion is $9.75 unless you're an Avalon member ($6.50). I'm in the film and will be on a panel discussing it afterwards, along with filmmakers Ian Cheney (no relation!), Curt Ellis and Aaron Woolf, and environmental champion Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon has been invited.

Here's more about the film and its premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas earlier this month.

From Audrey Hoffer's story ("Kind's proposal would help farmers, local communities: Lawmaker wants to change farm priorities") in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"There's a lot of pent-up demand to implement good land and water conservation programs," said Kind of farmers across the country; but three out of four farmers are rejected when they offer to share the cost of cleaner water, open space and wildlife habitats "because of our misplaced spending priorities."

In Wisconsin, more than one-third of conservation assistance requests in 2004 were not funded, according to the Natural Resource Conservation Service. The Healthy Farms bill would increase voluntary conservation incentives among farmers.

Here's Steve Callahan's piece in the La Crosse Tribune.

The same series in The Washington Post that is nominated for a Pulitzer was on the short list for the Goldsmith prize for investigative journalism. The Wall Street Journal won for a series on insider manipulation of stock trades, but it's a credit to the Post's Dan Morgan, Gilbert Gaul and Sarah Cohen to have been in the running.

Oh, and hat tip to Donny Allen for tracking down the link to the WaPo subsidy series.

Up from 28 at introduction last year.

This is a clear sign of momentum building in support of a dramatic increase in conservation spending as a core reform in the 2007 farm bill.

You'll find the latest on it here.

EWG's statement is here.

Senator Menendez is introducing a companion bill. Here's the release from Rep. Kind.

News from
Congressman Ron Kind
REPRESENTING WISCONSIN’S THIRD
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Anne Lupardus
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Phone: 202-225-5506

REVISED MEDIA ADVISORY

Representatives Kind, Gerlach, Sen. Menendez to Announce Major Farm Bill Reform Legislation

Healthy Farms, Foods, and Fuels Act of 2007 Provides
Major New Investments in Biofuels, Conservation

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI), Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) will hold a news conference Thursday on Capitol Hill to unveil the first major bill in Congress dealing with the reauthorization of the 2007 Farm Bill, The Healthy Farms, Foods, and Fuels Act of 2007.

The bill reforms the Farm Bill to make a major new investment in the development of renewable energy on American farms, promote resource conservation, provide consumers with healthier food choices, and boost farm profitability. The Healthy Farms, Foods, and Fuels Act of 2007 also includes provisions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on farms and fight global warming, and to expand programs to bring healthier foods to school cafeterias.

Joining Reps. Kind, Gerlach and Sen. Menendez will be Bartlett Durand of the Otter Creek Organic Farm in Clyde, Wisconsin. Mr. Durand is one of thousands of farmers nationwide that participate in USDA voluntary conservation programs. The Healthy Farms, Foods, and Fuels Act of 2007 would dramatically increase these opportunities.

More details of the bill, which will be introduced Thursday morning, will be available at the news conference.

WHO: Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ (tentative)
Rep. Ron Kind, D-WI
Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-PA
Sherry Dudas, Honey Brook Organic Farm, Pennington, NJ
Bartlett Durand, Otter Creek Organic Farm, Clyde, Wisconsin
Roger Rohrer, Poultry- Crops Farmer, Strasburg, PA (tentative)

WHAT: Introduction of The Healthy Farms, Foods, and Fuels Act of 2007

WHERE: Senate swamp (corner of Delaware Ave & Constitution Ave, NE)

WHEN: Thursday, March 15, 2007, 10:30 a.m. EDT

The legislation is set to be introduced tomorrow, but it has already attracted dozens of co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle.

More details post-introduction.

This compelling story about farm subsidies and EWG's Farm Subsidy Database by the AP's Nate Jenkins has run in over 80 outlets, online and in print, over the past few days.

The lede:

BENEDICT, NEB. - Ross Hirschfeld says folks have been talking behind his back ever since the local paper reported that he has been getting millions of dollars in farm subsidies from Washington.

Hirschfeld, a hands-on farmer who shovels hog manure on Saturdays, just as he has since grade school, says that fellow farmers get angry at him now when he buys land to expand. He says his daughter, who teaches school 300 miles away, has been asked by her grade-school students about her "rich father."

"People think, 'They got all that money, blah, blah, blah,' " Hirschfeld says.

Exactly how much Hirschfeld and other farmers get from Uncle Sam has become common knowledge around here because an environmental group has been posting names and figures on its Web site as part of its campaign against the nation's multibillion-dollar farm-subsidy program.

At small-town coffee shops across the countryside, talk about the weather and Nebraska football now competes with gossip about who is getting big bucks from Washington.

A bit further down, smaller farmers and livestock producers weigh in.

The information is raising tensions between smaller farmers and bigger producers in otherwise neighborly farm communities. And it may be turning some people against the subsidy program as it now operates.

"When the numbers came out, I thought it was too much," says Lynn Lowe, who has a small farm in the same county as Hirschfeld. "The government shouldn't be helping them out — they get more than we see per year" in income.

"When's enough enough?" Darell Bolton, a nearby farmer with a small operation, says of the Hirschfelds' checks.

What caught my eye, in particular, was this passage:

Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen accuses Cook of inaccurately portraying farmers as rich welfare recipients and ignoring the underlying reason for subsidies — to stabilize food production in an often volatile marketplace.

"He wants to ruin public support for farm programs," Hansen says. "Ken Cook knows good and well he's creating confusion and hard feelings and misunderstandings between ag players and nonag people, and his agenda is to do just that."

What's really dividing farmers--and not just in Nebraska but nationwide--is the fact that the biggest ones growing a few favored crops collect huge amounts of subsidies from taxpayers, year after year, while most farmers and ranchers receive little or nothing.

EWG's Farm Subsidy Database revealed the inequity. But it was created by wasteful farm subsidy programs that pay unlimited amounts of taxpayer money to the largest producers, mostly of the 5 favored crops.

And for the record, I've been a strong supporter of farm assistance programs for decades, and am proud of that record. I just happen to think we ought spend it better, and more fairly, than our commodity subsidies spend it.

Conservation programs are the best way to do that.

Even if that means a rebalancing in the public interest that challenges the paper's home state's producers.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

A funny thing happened on the way to the farm bill this year. An obscure, even secretive, process by which Congress sits down every five years or so to divvy up billions of dollars in federal agriculture subsidies has been discovered by an extraordinary assortment of conservationists, nutrition advocates, renewable energy experts and even ecumenical leaders, who realize that federal farm policy affects everything from pollution in the Mississippi River to the control of global warming.

This is not encouraging for Minnesota's corn and soybean farmers, who have benefited hugely from federal subsidies, but it is a good thing for the broader public interest in agriculture policy and the wise use of public subsidies.

Hat tip to Scott Faber of Environmental Defense--for my money, the most effective advocate for reform in this farm bill cycle.

Some 90-odd citations currently on Google News.

The nominations for the 2007 Pulitzer Prizes have been leaked again, according to Editor and Publisher.

And according to E&P, the Washington Post's incredible 2006 series on farm subsidies is nominated in the Public Service category.

I'll be damned if I can find online links to the series on the Post's Website, however.

The official announcement of the nominees and winners is set for April 16.

Jack Thurston, our colleague across the pond, has been working to disclose farm subsidy payments with a consortium of journalists, academic researchers and NGOs. They maintain this incredible Web site.

Now Jack sends word that the latest data from the EU Commission show that Europe's largest farms are getting an ever greater share of taxpayer support through the Common Agricultural Policy. Jack says these big payments will rekindle debate to tighten subsidy limits for large EU farms in 2008--right after we fight that fight here in the USA.

New data released this week by the European Commission shows an increasingly unequal distribution of the EU's farm subsidies. The figures, which refer to the 2005 financial year, show that across the whole EU, 85 per cent of payments go to the largest 18 per cent of Europe's farms. In the previous financial year, 85 per cent of payments was shared among the largest 23 per cent of recipients. The figures also show that there are 910 more farms in the top bracket of recipients who receive more than €300,000 a year compared to the previous year.

There are two drivers of this increase in the uneven distribution of
payments. The first is the accession of the ten new EU member states in 2004. The second is the continuing consolidation of farms into larger units. Enlargement of the EU has brought in a large number of very small farms. Moreover, the new member states were only given a partial entitlement to farm subsidies, starting at 25 per cent in 2005 and rising to full parity with the EU-15 in 2013.

The new figures show that there are 2 790 farms receiving more than €300,000 a year, compared to 1 880 the previous year. It is widely expected that a payment cap of €300,000 will be proposed as part of the CAP 'health check' planned for 2008.

EWG included.

It's all here.

Going back decades, no institution has spoken with more integrity, credibility, persistence or expertise on the need to tighten limits on federal farm subsidy payments to the largest farm operations. Compared to the Center, EWG is very much a newcomer to this debate.

They make a rip roarin' case for reform in their latest newsletter. Below are the first few graphs, but the whole editorial is worth a read (scroll down to "Time to Put Up or Shut Up On Payment Limitations", but there's a lot more worth reading on their site).

Democratic congressional candidates scour the countryside for votes by proclaiming themselves the champion of the family farmer and little guy. Now they control both houses of Congress. It’s time to put up or shut up by addressing the long festering need for farm program payment limitations. Rural politicians of both parties have long waxed eloquent about saving family farms while passing farm programs that subsidize their demise. The hypocrisy has been bipartisan. Northern representatives have generally given lip service to limits on mega farm payments, while southerners have opposed them in deference to large cotton and rice interests. In the end, enough payment limitation supporters have given in for big farm interests to win. In conceding, they typically justify unlimited payments as an evil necessary to maintain the farm coalition and get more money sooner for farm payments. That is a profound mistake. The root cause of family farm decline is not insufficient government payments. The root problem is that both markets and government policy are biased toward bigness. In a pure market economy, the playing field is not level. Those with an initial advantage use it to bid land and assets away from those starting from a lesser position. And the big have economic power to gain price advantages.

Check out these great posts at Chews Wise.

Locally grown fruits and vegetables are a significant part of Whole Foods produce department.

Organic dairymen and supporters are pushing USDA for tougher grazing rules.

And this rundown on pesticide residues in food.

Organic ag is a much bigger industry than it was in 1990, when Congress passed a farm bill that authorized federal standards for organic food, or even than it was when the last farm bill was passed in 2002.

It's certainly a lot bigger in California. And they don't want to come out of another farm policy cycle as farm bill losers.

As Mike Doyle reports in The Sacramento Bee today:

With 4 million acres in the United States now certified as organic, twice the level when Congress wrote the 2002 farm bill, growers undeniably command attention from more lawmakers.

He builds the story around organic dairy farmer Tony Azevedo:

Lawmakers largely left organic foods alone the last time they wrote a farm bill. Merced County dairy farmer Tony Azevedo wants to change that.

Azevedo and his allies seek tens of millions of dollars for research. They want help with crop insurance, and they crave protection in case their crops become contaminated.

"Our goal is to give all farms in the United States a chance to become part of organic (farming)," Azevedo said Tuesday.

Azevedo, 55, is a lifelong dairyman who spent his early career as a conventional farmer. For the past 11 years, he has forgone traditional chemicals, put his 700 cows out to pasture and tr