Millions in farm subsidies go to dead farmers and empty farms
Each year, the government spends some $20 billion on farm subsidies, the bulk of it easing production costs for big agribusinesses. But sometimes subsidies are available to people who aren't farming at all:
[T]o be treated as a farmer in America doesn’t necessarily require you to grow any crops. According to the Government Accountability Office, between 2007 and 2011 Uncle Sam paid some $3 million in subsidies to 2,300 farms where no crop of any sort was grown. Between 2008 and 2012, $10.6 million was paid to farmers who had been dead for over a year. [The Economist]
Though efforts have been made to remove legal loopholes that make these payments possible, a strong agricultural lobby makes too much reform politically dangerous. And landowners have found ways to get around reforms, anyway — like saying their small children are farmers.
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