The Environmental Working Group (EWG) caused quite a stir in rural America when it released its farm subsidy database in 2004.

Farmers were justifiably mad that their personal financial information was being aired publicly—some growers such as Terry Wanzek even felt tremendous hardship as a result of the invasion of privacy. But what made growers the maddest was the way EWG packaged and misrepresented the information.

Farm program benefits were lumped together over multiple years in an attempt to make figures look bigger and were shown in isolation with no broader context, leaving the impression that farmers were camped out at their mailboxes awaiting checks.

Farmer-owned cooperatives were villainized as being the nation's biggest subsidy recipients even though benefits went to the individual farm families that made up the cooperative (in some cases thousands of members).

And, no mention was made of the incredible business risks these family enterprises face with creeping input costs, commodity prices that are set on a world stage and often fall below the cost of production, and the ravages of nature that can burn, flood or otherwise wipe out a year's crop—and a year's income—with cruel indifference.

Worse yet, farm policy budgets were getting whacked on Capitol Hill, in part because EWG was so successful in spinning the facts to siphon money away from farmers for their own pet environmental projects.

Among the most egregious tactics used by EWG has been to spotlight rich and famous subsidy recipients—people like basketball star Scottie Pippen or Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen.

These individuals are cited over and over again in news stories as examples of why farm policy needs reform. Yet EWG glosses over the fact that many high-profile recipients aren't receiving farm payments, but rather environmental subsidies—subsidies the EWG supports and lobbies for increased funding.

Scottie Pippen's entry in the EWG database is possibly the best known and most visited on the site. All of the $79,000 attributed to the professional athlete comes from the Conservation Reserve Program, which is designed to take farmland out of production and return it to a natural state.

Another favorite target, Paul Allen, is in the same boat. Of the $30,000 in subsidies the computer pioneer is credited with receiving on the EWG database, more than $27,000 was for conservation.

Some national media outlets have even used the database to make sensational claims about Beverly Hills' subsidy recipients, again failing to differentiate farm safety net benefits from environmental subsidies.

A search of the EWG database in the famous 90210 zip code unveiled that Robert Kopple is the most subsidized man on Rodeo Drive. He got $125,000 from taxpayers-$120,000 of which was claimed under the Conservation Reserve Program.

And the distinction for the smallest subsidy in 90210 goes to William O'Bryan with a whopping $404 over a three-year period. Of course, that $404 windfall was all for conservation.

Unfortunately, pointing out the irony of an environmental group using environmental subsides to complain about the farm bill is difficult for the 125,000 full-time farmers in America who produce three-quarters of the nation's food and fiber.

These farmers know that conservation is important and don't want to disparage environmental initiatives that help improve the land. At the same time, they're furious about being dragged through the mud and having private information—much like Social Security benefits, or food stamp expenditures, or Medicare payments—plastered on the Internet for the whole world to see.

Farmers rarely return mistreatment, but just this once decided to give a political opponent a taste of their own medicine. Here's a new database entry prepared especially for EWG and the staffers behind their subsidy database*:

ENTRY:	Environmental Working Group
REVENUE:	$14,160,250
INCOME TAXES PAID	$0
$ SPENT ATTACKING FARMERS:	$2,403,250
LOBBYING EXPENSES:	$148,207
COMPANSATION PACKAGES:
KEN COOK (PRESIDENT)	$549,336
RICHARD WILES (EXEC. DIRECTOR)	$524,554

*In true EWG fashion, the figures above represent only a fraction of the data available about EWG and EWG Action Fund and are a combination of tax years 2005, 2006, and 2007.