THE FEED; In the Farm Bill, a Creature From the Black Lagoon? By
ANDREW MARTIN Published: January 13, 2008 IT may not surprise
you to learn that much of the pork and chicken and beef and milk
that you buy at the grocery store comes from huge, industrial-
size operations that bear little resemblance to the quaint
family farms that adorn many food packages. But you may be
surprised to learn that your tax dollars have helped pave the
way for the growth of these livestock megafarms by paying
farmers to deal with the mountains of excrement that their farms
generate. All of this is carried out under the rubric of
''conservation.'' Congress is about to renew the program -- and
possibly even expand it -- as part of a new farm bill wending
its way through the Capitol. It's called the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program, also known as EQIP -- a name that
suggests an initiative to encourage farmers to improve
environmental standards. And, in fact, when the program was
created as part of the 1996 farm bill, that's ex