Over the past decade, our government has handed out $1.3 billion in federal farm money to people who aren't even farmers. We've got farm money going to Fortune 500 companies. And get this - we even have the Department of Agriculture paying roughly a billion dollars to more than 170,000 people who aren't even alive. It's a waste of money that makes it harder for family farms to turn a profit and easier for corporate mega-farms to buy them out.
When the farm bill comes up in the Senate, I will be fighting to tell all those agribusiness lobbyists that they won't be able to count on the multi-million-dollar subsidies they always get because we're going to put family farmers first. Under Tom Harkin's leadership, we're going to put conservation of our land and our water first. We're going to put biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and ethanol that represent the future of energy in this country first. And we're going to put economic development for rural America first. Those lobbyists -- they can wait at the back of the line for a change.
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