Well, that's it, I guess California can be bought off for the right price.  California produces vast amounts of produce, but most of it doesn't fall under the subsidies of the farm bill. Most of that goes to making sure that corn syrup is vastly underpriced so that Coca-Cola can continue to rot our teeth.  Well, to get concessions on the farm bill, some of the big farm bill legislators have tossed California a bone: 

Senate Democrats announced a breakthrough in a long-stalled farm bill Wednesday that would provide billions of dollars for California fruit and vegetable marketing, farm conservation and food stamps – but would maintain costly, traditional crop subsidies for corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybeans. (SF Chron 10/18/07)

  All well and good, but it doesn't really go to the heart of the issue. Flip.

I think orangeclouds115 and farmbillgirl know more about the farm bill than I. But what I do know, is that no real reform is happening. We continue to subsidize corn, mostly because that's what we've always done. It doesn't make sense financially, and it certainly doesn't make sense agriculturally. Yet we persist:

But it was unclear whether the deal would appease the unusual left-right alliance of reformers hoping to change the 70-year-old system of crop subsidies that they contend has speeded farm industrialization, harmed the environment and contributed to the nation's obesity epidemic. Fruit and vegetable growers said they might not be happy, either.

*** 

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he has broad support on his committee, a bastion of traditional farm interests, and plans a vote as early as next Wednesday. The deal fended off powerful opposition from subsidy supporters in both parties from the South and Midwest who threatened to thwart any compromise that reduced their subsidies. Harkin conceded that the agreement was not a big break with the past. “Farm programs don't take sharp turns, but we do try to bend the rails a little bit,” Harkin said.

No, sharp turns are for wimps. We persist in our mistakes!