The myth of the government saving the struggling family farm is a persistent one. In response to my criticisms of the farm bill, a reader named Debbie writes:

I work at a grain elevator north of St. Louis, and work with a variety of farmers.   Most are struggling year to year.  They need a good year now and then to keep operating.  I wasn’t sure if you were talking about actors, etc., that buy land and fall into the farmer category, or real farmers like I see every day. 

I responded by referring her to a great database:

You may be right about the majority of farmers being small-time operators who are struggling. But the majority of the government money goes to a handful of corporations and wealthy individuals. The Environmental Working Group has a useful database of subsidy recipients.

I also shared one telling statistic from the EWG site:

Among subsidy recipients, ten percent collected 74 percent of all subsidies, amounting to $130.6 billion over 12 years.