How Farm Subsidies Harm

Or: one of the things I learned while reading “Fed Up,” by Governor Rick Perry, leading me to find this article by the Heritage Foundation:

A recent Washington Post investigation discovered 75 acres of Texas farmland that had been converted into a housing development. Today, the homeowners on these properties (which are worth well over $300,000 each) are eligible for fixed payments for the lawn in their backyards because of its “historical rice production.” Residents never asked for these subsidies and have even stated that as non-farmers they do not want the government mailing them checks.[30] Over the past 25 years, rice plantings in Texas have plummeted from 600,000 acres to 200,000, in part because people can now collect generous rice subsidies without planting rice. If Washington insists on subsidizing farming, subsidizing actual farmland rather than residential neighborhoods that were once farmland would make more sense.

via How Farm Subsidies Harm Taxpayers, Consumers, and Farmers, Too.