Farm Bill Giveaways for Underwear, Flatulence, and Manure

The House and Senate are struggling to negotiate terms of a new $1 trillion “farm” bill that would subsidize an array of commodities as well as regulate food stamps. Many of the agriculture giveaways are well known, including crop insurance, price supports, and conservation payments. But there are also some surprises buried within the Senate and House legislation (1,163 pages and 608 pages, respectively) that bring new meaning to the term “special interest.”

• Underpants. Both bills provide for “Economic Adjustment Assistance” that would pay domestic manufacturers of cotton products $66 for each ton they use of “upland cotton”—the most common type of the fiber grown in the United States. (Nearly 8 billion pounds of upland cotton were harvested last year.) Past recipients have included global underwear purveyor Fruit of the Loom and other clothiers.

• Cow flatulence. “Conservation Innovation Grants” are proposed in both versions of the legislation to stimulate the development and adoption of conservation approaches and technologies. The grants have included $1,055,996 to the Unison Resource Company, San Francisco Carbon collaborative, and EcoAnalytics to prevent global warming by reducing intestinal methane emissions from cattle.

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