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Comment by stevenwoo | Hacker News Reader

I was under the impression most farm subsidies (> 2/3) in the US go to extremely large corporations - they want the annual subsidies because it keeps them in business every year and can afford the lobbyists/PACs to pressure congresspeople to vote for the subsidies in Congress.

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Nope, even small farms receive them. And, most of the farms in the U.S. are actually owned by rural families, not large corporations. Edit: When I think of evil megacorp PACs and their lobbyists, I don't think of agriculture at all. Farmers have it rough; droughts, infestations, blights, hedging bets, fabricated news / inaccurate prices to keep exports flowing that eat their bottom lines, high machinery and supplies costs and the already tough job of growing something from nothing while meeting stiff competition. Not to mention being a thankless job. Few care or understand how the food ends up on their table.

But isn't most of the land managed by companies? Does 'most of the farms' mean lots of small holdings?

Yes, a lot of small land holdings. There are large corps and also government owned/run farms, but a vast majority of agriculture in the u.s. is family run. Which is not a bad thing, because they love what they do and we need them as a society. My family owns a farm producing corn / wheat / soy / green beans / etc, mostly run by my Dad and the work rented out to another local farmer. Some of the corn is used for fuel production. The rest of us have moved into suburbia/cities in various roles; managers, business owners, software, bartenders, etc. I develop software for example, myself.

This article says something otherwise:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/16/the-d...

Its another top-2%-owns-everything situation. Most land is in megafarms. So 'family owned' in both number and land area seems to be a myth

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