SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A37

LENGTH: 1216 words

HEADLINE: Farm Subsidy Web Site Sows Discord; Listing of Payment Details Raises Questions in Congress and Angers Recipients

BYLINE: John Lancaster, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:


Suppose you could go to a Web site, type in the names of co-workers -- or maybe your boss -- and find out how much money they make. Be honest -- you would. And farmers, it seems, are no less curious than the rest of us.

Since its public debut on Nov. 6, a new Internet-accessible database that ranks farmers by name according to the amount of federal subsidies they receive has recorded 10.1 million searches. The payments often constitute the bulk of farmers' income, and many of the hits have been by farmers eager to know how they compare with the guy growing corn or soybeans down the road. "To see my subsidies on that site was just like me being seen totally naked at a school reunion," one farmer wrote recently in an online forum maintained by Agriculture.com, the Web site of Successful Farming magazine. "Something has to be done about that site because it is very embarrassing."

But nosy neighbors aren't the only ones logging on to the site.

Assembled from government records by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization that wants to take money from crop programs and spend it on conservation, the Web site has assumed a prominent place in the farm-policy debate in Washington. That debate is now at a fever pitch as the Senate struggles with legislation that would extend for five years the traditional row-crop subsidies that have governed American agriculture since the 1930s.

Subsidy recipients that have turned up on the database include Fortune 500 companies, colleges and universities, at least a dozen members of Congress, the North Carolina Department of Transportation, wealthy city dwellers, lobbyists for major farm organizations, a former Miss America, media mogul Ted Turner, former Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller and former Washington Post executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee. (Bradlee is shown to have received $ 3,500 in conservation payments in 1998 for a farm he owns in St. Mary's County.)

Though hardly typical, the proliferation of such tales has buttressed charges by lawmakers and others that subsidies intended to help struggling family farmers instead flow disproportionately to the wealthiest growers, most of whom are in the Midwest and South.

Among those who recently have made use of the database (at www.EWG.org) are Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, Assistant Senate Minority Leader Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Sen. Richard. G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, all of whom are sharply critical of the Senate bill.

"I've downloaded a number of pages that I thought were very helpful in trying to get some idea of the flow of money," said Lugar, who last week, during a speech on the Senate floor, urged his colleagues to look at the site. "If senators, or members of the House, really studied the situation, then they would have a different kind of debate," Lugar said. Using his own state as an example, Lugar found that 66 percent of federal farm subsidies in Indiana go to just 10 percent of the farmers subsidized there. Lugar, who is part owner of a farm in Indiana, last year received $ 2,950 in crop subsidies.

Spokesmen for farm groups say stories about wealthy beneficiaries obscure the real needs of farmers suffering from the lowest commodity prices in 40 years. Many farmers say the environmental group has violated their privacy by publishing their subsidy income. And they worry that non-farmers will be misled by the size of the figures, which initially are presented in five-year lump sums that do not reflect the cost of production.

"They resent the fact that neighbors can look up their business," said Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest farmers organization. "I don't know that Social Security is public."

Stallman, a Texas rice farmer who got $ 323,800 in subsidies between 1996 and 2000, according to the database, said it is hardly surprising that the largest share of subsidies goes to the biggest farmers, given that "those who produce more get more payments." And he disputed claims that farm programs promote the concentration of agriculture, saying that many medium-size farms would have been gobbled up by larger ones long ago if subsidies had not helped them stay in business.

For all the attention it has generated, the database has not prevented farm interests from getting their way in Congress this year, at least so far. The farm bill passed by the House earlier this year scrapped the premise of the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act, which sought to wean farmers from subsidies in favor of the free market. Traditional crop payments also are enshrined in the Senate bill, which the Senate's Democratic leaders hope to pass before Congress adjourns for Christmas.

While the Bush administration does not support either bill, it is especially critical of the Senate version, saying it will promote overproduction and depress prices while undercutting free trade.

"I don't think it's had nearly the impact the environmentalists wanted it to have," Stallman said of the database. "Everyone that's been involved in farm policy and understands the structure of the farm program knows those numbers are there. It was no revelation to us."

The Agriculture Department had long refused to release details on subsidy payments, citing privacy concerns. But in 1996, a federal judge ruling in a case brought by The Washington Post found that the release of such data was a matter of "significant public interest." The Environmental Working Group then obtained it under a Freedom of Information Act request.

"It makes the debate real," Ken Cook, the group's president, said of the Web site, which has generated heavy Internet traffic in rural areas. "The only way these [subsidies] are going to become an important policy debate is if farmers understand them more than abstractly, in a really up-close, grounded way."

Among those paying special attention to the Web site are landowners who lease their property to farmers, who in turn collect federal payments for the crops they grow. "We have gotten a lot of reaction from people who say, 'Now that I know what my tenant is getting in crop subsidies, I'm going to renegotiate my lease,' " Cook said.

"There's a lot of cafe talk going on," agreed Greg Stephens, who grows wheat in northwest Kansas and also teaches business at Kansas State University in Salina. "People are surprised that [the subsidies] are as large as they appear."

There are signs that the cafe talk is starting to filter back to Washington. For example, while few lawmakers are willing to go as far as Lugar, who wants to rebuild farm programs from the ground up, a number have signaled support for an amendment by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would lower the ceiling on annual subsidies for farmers from $ 460,000 to $ 275,000. Dorgan's approach is one favored by small-farm owners who say existing programs drive up land prices and favor the largest operations.

"We ought to concentrate the resources we have on family farmers," said Barry Piatt, Dorgan's spokesman. "If someone wants to farm the next two counties, God bless them, but they don't need the government's help to do it."



LOAD-DATE: December 19, 2001