The Strange Farm Bill

Alan Guebert blasts the Senate's proposed Farm Bill (h/t Big Picture Agriculture):

Certainly, the legislation contained big changes: $4 billion in cuts to nutrition programs, a Rural Development title that cut over $1 billion in the coming decade and, touted ranking member Pat Roberts of Kansas, "over SIXTY (his emphasis) authorizations eliminated from the Research Title," cutting "at least $770 million over 5 years."
Cutting agricultural research programs and chopping Rural Development is neither wise nor brave. It is easy, however, like taking lunch money from the weakest kid on the school bus and declaring "Look what I found!"
The centerpiece of the Senate farm plan is an expansion of crop insurance, the fastest-growing hottie chased by everyone in Congress because it looks both great and cheap. Two recent examinations of it, however, say it is neither.
The first, authored by Iowa State University economist Bruce Babcock for the Environmental Working Group, claims a crop insurance program that "covers crop losses of more than 30 percent" -- yield shortfalls, not today's heavily subsidized revenue guarantees -- could be given free to all farmers and save taxpayers "$26 billion in premium subsidies over 10 years," $3 billion more than the entire Senate bill saves.
(Links to the 25-page Babcock report and other documents are posted at www.farmandfoodfile.com.)
The reason, explains the report: "Over 80 percent of ‘crop' insurance policies now insure business income even if there is no yield loss... This has doubled the cost to taxpayers..."
In practical terms, writes Babcock, that means "the average unsubsidized premium" for a 15 percent deductible "revenue" protection policy on a Champaign County, Ill., corn farm is $52 per acre. After the federal subsidy, however, the price plummets to $26.

Cutting research spending is absolutely stupid, and the crop insurance program is a giant byzantine subsidy to farmers.  The government might not have gotten burned badly by the crop insurance program, but they are going to eventually.  There is just too much money at stake with far too little coming out of farmers' pockets.  But if the shit hits the fan, farmers will be receiving disaster payments also.