The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released new data on the recipients of U.S. farm subsidies to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and a number of news organizations in response to freedom of information (FOI) requests.

Congress had mandated a tracking system for farm subsidies in the 2002 Farm Bill, explains the EWG. That information, which should shed new light on the recipients of farm subsidies, was released in 2006, following FOI requests made several years ago.

The EWG expects to release the new information on its online database in January 2007, available here.

"While we are in the preliminary stages of analyzing this data, we expect it will add important new details about exactly who receives farm subsidies from taxpayers, and how much," said Ken Cook, president of the EWG. "Many of those beneficiaries have not been disclosed in the past by the EWG Farm Subsidy Database for the simple reason that the information was not made available to us."