OMAHA (DTN) -- When the Environmental Working Group released its annual database of farm subsidies earlier this week, the group pointed out the data wasn't as transparent as it had been a couple of years ago because USDA wasn't releasing certain data any longer.

In 2007, EWG put out a more detailed list of subsidy recipients because of new "1614" data, stemming from a provision in 2002 farm bill. That 1614 data tied actual payments to people, eliminating the ability to hide payments behind different businesses.

That data revealed a lot of people collecting farm payments were not typical farmers. ...