Night of the Farming Dead

Sometimes these things just write themselves:

The U.S. Agriculture Department has been paying farm subsidies to thousands of people who are dead, in some cases for many years, say congressional investigators.

(Semi-literally) grisly details about what it's like on farms where the rooster crows not just at dawn, but the dawn of the dead.

A report by the Government Accountability Office says USDA paid $1.1 billion in subsidies to 172,801 dead people between 1999 through 2005. Forty percent of that money went to people who had been for at least three years, the report found.

Nineteen percent went to individuals who had been dead for at least seven years.

In a case involving an Illinois farm, USDA made $400,000 in payments from 1999 through 2005 in the name of someone who died in 1995, the report said.

Check out reason's appropriately titled "Six Reasons to Kill Farm Subsidies" and much, much more on farm policy here.

Also, apparently there's a movie called Zombie Farm. Does the U.S.D.A. know something we don't? And are they in cahoots with Hollywood?

Via Mark Lambert