Exactly! >But only 9% of California's 74,000 farms have actually received subsidy payments and nearly two-thirds of the money since 1996--$1.8 billion--has gon

Exactly! >But only 9% of California's 74,000 farms have actually received subsidy payments and nearly two-thirds of the money since 1996--$1.8 billion--has gone to fewer than 3,500 farms. Most of the crops that fuel the state's $29-billion farm machine--grapes, peaches, plums, nectarines, strawberries, almonds, walnuts and vegetables of every hue--don't get a penny of aid. They aren't eligible. Rather, the bulk of the money goes to support giant fields of cotton, rice, wheat and barley--crops that exist in surplus. Of the top 20 recipients in California, seven are big cotton growers and 11 are big rice growers. On average, they take in $596,000 in crop subsidies a year. http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/10/local/me-subsidy10 http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/10/local/me-subsidy10