Obama & USDA

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On the campaign trail, President-elect Barack Obama said his administration would help small family farms, end childhood hunger and upgrade roads and bridges in rural areas. His commitment to the rural and impoverished parts of America helped secure critical victories for him in Midwestern Corn Belt states, such as Iowa and Minnesota, and has heightened expectations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as Obama prepares to appoint an agriculture secretary to oversee wide-ranging efforts. In cash-strapped times, the challenges of mounting new initiatives are daunting. And the USDA is still battling long-running problems: subsidy programs that give huge sums to ineligible, millionaire farmers; a food inspection system that puts Americans at risk for food-borne illnesses; and nutrition programs that fail to identify more than 30 percent of Americans who live in poverty and are at risk of hunger every month. Many of the problems that Obama wants to tackle have been controversial for several decades. Improper payment of crop subsidies -- intended to help struggling family farmers -- is a prime example. Last week, a report by the Government Accountability Office asserted that the USDA continued to give federal subsidies to ineligible, wealthy farmers despite a series of congressional reforms. Between 2003 and 2006, more than 2,700 farmers who were earning more than the cutoff of $2.5 million annually continued to receive subsidies. Unwarranted payments totaled $49 million....