What the report finds is that cotton and rice get the most
government support, soybeans get among the least, and corn falls
somewhere in the middle. Farm programs have been around since
the 1930s and paid out an estimated $415 billion. Many may feel
that the "Freedom to Farm Act" brought about a reduction in farm
payments, but in reality, $223 billion (or about 52%) of total
USDA Commodity Credit Corporation payments have occurred in the
15 years since the Freedom to Farm bill passed in 1996. The
report is jam-packed with great graphs outlining comparisons
between the different major commodities. Here are a few
highlights from the report. Yearly support spending for the
major program crops averaged $9.118 billion. If this had been
distributed equally over all acreage, the payments would have
been about $40 per acre. Payments actually ranged from a high of
about $217 per acre for rice to a low of about $6 per acre for
the other oilseeds. Overlooked by the comparison is the fact
that an acre of rice had a marke