Despite new rules (and loads of hullabaloo) aimed at cutting federal farm subsidies to the nation's largest farmers and landowners, little has changed in who gets subsidies, according to the Des Moines Register's Philip Brasher. In 2007, 20 percent of those Iowans receiving subsides received 64 percent of the farm payments. In 2009, after the new rules were in place, the top 20 percent received 63% of the farm subsidies. 

Brasher says that fixed payments are the most likely place for Congress to change the farm subsidy program. Iowa farmers received $511 million in annual fixed payments in 2009 -- payments landowners receive even when farmers are producing bumper crops and receiving high prices.

"We're having a hard time defending that, to tell you the truth," Craig Lang, president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, told Brasher. "In order to balance the deficit, we have to do our share."

Barack Obama brought his message about rejuvenating the rural economy to NE Missouri.  Face-to-face meeting goes a long way in the Show-Me State.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard the first case involving genetically engineered crops Tuesday. The case involved a three-year-old ban on Monsanto's genetically modified alfalfa. Sale of the Roundup Ready alfalfa was blocked by a court order in California after opponents claimed that Monsanto's seed contaminated their crops and cripple export sales to countries that ban GMO products. The judge ordered an environmental impact study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Earlier, the USDA had okayed the Monsanto product; the USDA is expected to complete the environmental study of the alfalfa next year.

The justices spent little time dwelling on the debate about the safety or environmental effects of biotech crops," wrote the Des Moines Register's Philip Brasher. "But Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that the threat to conventional or organic growers was minor and manageable. 'It makes it more difficult for them to have a field of 100 percent non-genetically engineered (alfalfa),  but that’s not the end of the world,' Scalia said."

The Supreme Court's decision is due in June. Opponents say they may take the case back to court. Brasher interviewed one alfalfa producer who said that if the Court ends the band, the threat of cross-polination from GMS crops will push the production of non-biotech alfalfa to Canada. 

Couple of things to look at this afternoon. The first is a front page story in today's New York Times about problems in North Dakota. Apparently, the state has too many jobs and not enough houses and apartments. Okay, too many jobs these days is not much of a hassle. North D's unemployment rate is down to 4% and the state's construction industry can't build housing fast enough for the people who work in the booming oil fields (above). People living -- for long periods -- in hotels, eating out of microwaves and snack machines. 

Tuesday afternoon the Senate Ag Committee voted to establish oversight of financial derivatives. The bill was written by Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln and it got one Republican vote, that of Charles Grassley, an Iowa farmer. Farmers use the futures markets all the time, but clearly they've gotten out of hand. Lincoln's bill will make these market mechanisms more regulated. Read about it here and here.  

And in a New York Times, there's a discussion of a recent article about the paucity of small slaughterhouses, a major impediment to small farmers trying to make a go of it in the meat business.  The number of slaughter houses is declining while the number of small farmers is increasing. The problem is particularly acute in the Northeast. In a New York Times blog, several people write about this issue. Thankfully, some of those in the discussion talk about the continuing consolidation of the meatpacking industry, a particular concern to us here at the Yonder.