Two new pieces of information buttress the notion endorsed by over 470 editorials that taxpayer funded farm program payments to millionaires, wealthy landowners and large profitable farm businesses needs critical reform.

The first, a poll conducted by World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, found that:

Eighty percent of US subsidies go to large farming businesses, however only 36 percent of Americans favor such subsidies while 61 percent oppose them. Opposition to subsidies for large farms was not substantively or statistically different among Republicans (62%), Democrats (60%), and independents (59%).

Seventy-seven percent of Americans do, however, favor providing subsidies to small farms (i.e. farms under 500 acres). Support is highest among Democrats (82%), followed by Republicans (73%) and then Independents (69%). Most small farms do not receive subsidies.

Read the whole poll on farm subsidies here.

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The Sioux Falls, SD Argus Leader's editorial board recently weighed in on the issue:

At some point, federal farm subsidies are going to have to end. That's a bitter pill to swallow for those of us in South Dakota.

and

The reason the subsidies were created in the first place was to help farmers prepare to compete someday in a free-market system. That system, though, never arrived. Now, the subsidies are just too costly to continue to justify.

It seems the only folks that don't want reform, are the wealthy farmers and operations that receive taxpayer funds, and the members of the agriculture committees who control the purse strings.