Direct payments, as I'm sure many of you know, are the $5.2 billion dollars that is being paid out every single year, no matter the price of farm commodities, no matter whether the farmer even grows anything at all. As many have noted, they're kind of hard to justify when corn is $6/bushel and rice is $20/hundredweight- the highest prices in decades. But organizations such as the American Farm Bureau and pretty much all commodity groups have strenuously opposed taking even a single penny from direct payments to pay for other programs, like maybe a a conservation or rural development program.

Farm Bill negotiators in Congress appear poised to cut those payments by a pitiful 2% in 3 years of a 5 year farm bill. That would be in the neighborhood of $300-400 million I believe, out of $25 billion or so. Not all that impressive. But let's ask farmers- do they really want these payments at all?

DTN Ag is a farm news service, one I guarantee is rarely read by anyone outside the conventional farm community. One of their agriculture reporters, Chris Clayton, put up an online poll that asks:

As the farm bill wraps up, direct payments remain a staple payment for producers, accounting for $5.2 billion in spending, while fights continue in Congress over finding more funding for programs such as domestic and international food aid. How much should producers be willing to give up in direct payments in these times of high prices?

He gives options- no cut in payments at all, cut certain percentages, or "producers do not need to collect direct payments". 414 votes have been cast so far. And guess what?

As of 10:58am today, 188 votes have been cast for "producers do not need to collect direct payments", 54 for at least some cut, while 172 have been cast for no cut in payments at all. Well, well. It sounds to me like the near-unaminous front put on by supposed "farm" organizations in Washington to preserve every dollar of direct payments isn't exactly reflecting the preference of actual farmers. It makes you wonder why they're fighting so hard to preserve $25 billion in payments that more than half of farmers don't think should exist at all.

Update:  As of 3:45pm, we're at 226 that say get rid of direct payments and 195 who think they shouldn't be cut at all.  63 somewhere in the middle.  And by the way, I should have given a hat tip to John Phipps earlier, who led me to the poll.