According to the New York Times, "Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin and a former quarterback of the Harvard football team, wants to overhaul farm subsidy policy and pump more money into conservation, renewable energy projects, and rural development."

Kind's bill would significantly cut the large agribusiness subsidies that, according to critics, "encourage overproduction and consequently artificially lower prices and benefit only a small percentage of farmers, primarily large growers of corn, cotton, soybeans, rice and wheat."

What's interesting is that Kind represents a district rich with big dairy farmers who traditionally have done quite well in the government subsidy department. Kind says that "his farmers realized that change was inevitable and would welcome more money and programs for beginning farmers."

If Kind's dairy farmer constituency favors the bill, it strikes me that it's probably a sensible, forward-thinking piece of legislation I could get behind. Anyone who can further enlighten us should weigh in on this traditionally arcane but important topic. Following are the key passages of the Times editorial supporting Kind's efforts.

For years, reform-minded legislators have been trying to rid the country of a farm subsidy program that lavishes huge amounts of money on relatively few producers, compromises the environment, penalizes third-world farmers and fouls up trade negotiations. With the farm bill set to expire this year, the Bush administration has already proposed several excellent reforms. Now legislators in both houses are offering another approach that actually improves on the administration's.

The architects are respected farm-state legislators, led by the Senate's Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, and the House's Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat. Their matching bills threaten entrenched interests, and that is exactly why they deserve a close look and wide support.

At the heart of their approach is an overhaul of agricultural subsidies. Four major subsidy programs -- crafted to reward big growers of traditional crops like corn, wheat and soybeans -- would be phased out and replaced by a single ''risk-management account'' whose main purpose would be to cushion farmers from annual price swings. Crop insurance would still be available for major disasters.

The estimated savings -- $55 billion over 10 years -- would be used to expand rural conservation programs, encourage the production of renewable biofuels, provide more money for food stamps and help smaller farmers of specialty crops who are now frozen out of the system."