Plowboy:

"The farm program is not what they are using to fund their land purchases, it is the equity the already have, built up from years and possibly generations of previous work."

Some times this is true and I have no real beef with them.  Others though are truely share croppers, with the biggest asset being their machinery, which is financed through a dealership, and living in a house indebted to the max.  These farmers are using the government trough to bid up rent or purchase price of land that they then mortgage to pay living expenses.

It does happen this way and keeps some really good people from having a chance to farm.  By the way, the 3 people I said I knew earlier as driving around farmers, is now down to 2 as one had his mother pull the plug on his farm operation and rented the ground to other farmers rather than to continue baling him out of debt.