The preparation of the new Farm Bill, that should govern the support programs to agriculture during the 1996-2002 period, has given rise to a big debate on the amount of direct payments to farmers, their form and their distribution. The Congress has proposed to reduce subsidies and to decouple them from production in order to diminish the intervention of the Federal government and favor a more marketoriented agriculture. The goal is to increase the insertion of the farm sector in the world economy to take advantage of the rising food demand. For free trade advocates, the current boom in world agricultural markets offers a unique opportunity to depart radically from the traditional farm policy that has been implemented since the New Deal.
