As this Good News goes to press, the House Agriculture Committee is poised to send to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives a new farm bill. The 2007 farm bill continues the farm subsidy approach used in the past whereby larger operators reap the lion’s share of the benefits.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter earlier in June to a subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee urging that the farm subsidy program be reformed, but their plea for a more equitable program has so far gone unheeded.

The letter, signed by officials representing the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Catholic Charities, USA, Catholic Relief Services and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Brooklyn and Chairman of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Domestic Policy Committee, urged that programs be more equitable “by targeting support to active farmers that need it most and phasing out support to those that have the most and need it least.” The letter also ask the drafters of the farm bill to “significantly reduce trade distorting support programs that disadvantage farmers in poor countries.”

Any savings realized by restructuring the farm subsidy programs, the letter continues, “should be redirected to programs that assist poor and hungry people, and that encourage responsible stewardship of the land and rural development.”