C RITICS of the 2002 federal farm bill said it represented a return to wasteful, 1930s-style subsidy policy, skewed toward large growers of just a few crops, the top 10 percent of which would get nearly 70 percent of the benefits. Guess what: They were right.

As the U.S. House of Representatives debates the next five-year farm bill, statistics show two-thirds of the present bill's subsidies go to 10 percent of the ...