A bipartisan pair of agriculture senators are championing the elimination of direct payments to farms, but only if the $5-billion-a-year payment program is replaced by another subsidy that would go to mostly large farms that grow commodity crops.

The subsidy exchange is winning more support as lawmakers are hoping to influence the deficit reduction committee and show they are willing to make cuts. But their inability to just eliminate the program without replacing it shows how difficult it has been for lawmakers to reduce funding that is backed by large interests.

Rather than direct payments that go to farmers regardless of the market, the new "shallow-loss protection" subsidy would protect commodity farmers from small decreases in revenue. Proposed by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and John Thune (R-S.D.), the subsidy would be similar to a free insurance policy. This month, Republican Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman and Sen. Richard Lugar included it in farm bills they introduced.

The subsidy switch is backed by big farm lobbies, including the National Corn Growers Association. Both Thune and Brown have received campaign contributions from commodity agriculture political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

"We are very much aware of the budgetary constraints of the federal government," said Garry Niemeyer, president of the association. "We want to do our part as corn growers to help resolve those issues, but we only want to do our proportional part. We don't want to have everything taken out on us."

Critics of the proposal say that it is a bait-and-switch tactic and that the subsidy is unnecessary at a time of farm profits that are at their highest since 1974.

"How do you justify this kind of money going to a sector of the economy that's booming while other folks in the country are suffering?" Craig Cox, a senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, said of the subsidies (William Neuman, New York Times, Oct. 17). -- AP