The Washington Post’s All-Ag Editorial Page

<div style="text-align: center"><img src="/files/u2/Provincetown400_1.jpg" title="Provincetown" alt="Provincetown" height="83" hspace="4" vspace="4" width="125" /></div>The Washington Post had quite a farmy editorial page today. The paper's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120900970.html" target="_blank">lead editorial</a> noted that the Senate had begun (finally) to debate the farm bill, which the paper describes as a "gigantic Christmas present." The Post recounts the detailed stories the paper has published over the last year on what passes for "rural development" in the federal government — subsidizing movie theaters and museums in swank resort communities, like Provincetown (above).<p>What should happen in rural development is not part of the editorial.<br /><br />Meanwhile, former president <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/09/AR2007120900911.html" target="_blank">Jimmy Carter writes</a> that the farm bill's crop subsidy system "punishes small-scale farmers in the United States and is devastating to families in many of the world's least affluent countries." Carter prefers a crop insurance program that would protect farms against excessive losses. </p>