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Public Interest Group Launches Searchable Farm Bill 2007 Database

Press release: “For decades, American taxpayers have provided tens of billions of dollars in federal farm subsidies to some of the largest and wealthiest farm businesses in the nation. But thousands of people who benefited from the subsidy flow were shielded from public view behind layers of partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability corporations, cooperatives, and other business structures that obscured their personal subsidy claims. Not anymore. A new Web site [Farm Bill 2007 Database Home], developed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) from millions of previously unpublished USDA subsidy records…provides nearly full disclosure of federal farm subsidy beneficiaries for the first time. The disclosures include individuals, sometimes numbering in the dozens, whose subsidy benefits pass through one or more plantation-scale farm businesses that produce vast quantities of subsidized cotton, rice and other crops. Many of those businesses receive millions in USDA crop subsidies each year, and according to the new USDA data, pass six-figure benefits through to many people. In many cases, these individuals have not previously had subsidy benefits attributed to them by name.”

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