I agree that ADM is the recipiant of a great deal of corporate welfare. Unfortunatly, the whole of the Agricultural Industry is tied to corporate welfare.

You are completely correct in stating that it is the big corporate farms who benifit the most.

Try explaining that to a small family farmer who can't understand why he can't make ends meet on $2.00/bushel corn when Prime farmland sells for as much as $2,600/acre or more and yeilds 150-165 bushels a year...

Of course then there is the government that encourages farmers to take on greater and greater amounts of debt to purchase more land which drives the price of land even higher.

And government programs which encourage farmers to plant corn and soybeans in arid states like California and Colorado where the water and the land would be better suited to other uses (Like oil wells or grapes).

Farming is a mess. And as the government welfare continues, it is going to get worse and worse. Its a classic catch-22. Until some marginal farms are allowed to wilt and die. Prices will never go up.

Scott