Hoe, hoe, hoe! Christmas trees are back, in new farm bill

[unhappycamper]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/16/191438/hoe-hoe-hoe-christmas-trees-are.html



Christmas trees in California

Hoe, hoe, hoe! Christmas trees are back, in new farm bill
By Michael Doyle | McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — A Christmas tree-promotion program that pumped up conservative mockery and panicked the Obama administration is back for a second go-around, under a new farm bill.

~snip~

Approved by the House of Representatives panel shortly before midnight Wednesday, after more than nine hours of debate, the farm bill would change crop subsidies, food stamps, dairy policy and more. Over 10 years, the bill has an estimated price tag of $940 billion.

The measure, notably, eliminates the direct payments that currently provide about $5 billion a year to growers of commodities, including cotton, rice, wheat and corn. The bill replaces direct payments, in part, with a new, partially subsidized crop insurance program.

The direct payments are particularly abundant in states such as Kansas, where growers received $300 million in 2011, and Texas, where they received $371 million, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonpartisan health research and advocacy organization. The payments are less dominant, but still add up, in agriculturally diverse states such as California, where growers received $123 million. Other states, such as Florida, receive hardly any direct payments at all.