Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 6/6/18

Nearly 28,000 farmers have received USDA farm subsidies or disaster relief payments every year for 32 years — adding up to more than $19 billion in assistance, according to a report from the Environmental Working Group being released today. The average payment was $687,204, according to the report. One farm in Sondheimer, La., raked in $11.3 million in subsidies between 1985 and 2016. Nine other farms across the country received $8 million each.

House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway's farm bill would expand which family members can receive up to $125,000 — the current individual payment limit — in commodity subsidies (double for married couples). The new plan would allow farms to include nieces, nephews and first cousins.

Further, farms structured as limited liability companies and S corporations would be exempt from that payment cap and a $900,000 means test to qualify. Instead, each owner of the business would be subject to the individual payment limit and means test.
The EWG report revealed that 725 people who have received farm subsidies in that window of time live in Conaway's district.

Conaway has told POLITICO that his intention behind the proposed changes to subsidy programs was to treat all farms equally, regardless of their ownership structure, and to help keep family farms intact across generations.