She's also gotten money from U.S. Sugar Corporation, another Florida-based sugar company that has benefited from the decades old U.S. sugar price support program-one sugar producers are pushing to preserve in this year's farm bill in the face of Mexican competition opened up by the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Then there's the Florida Sugar Cane League, which has also given her campaign cash. Also some folks from Minnesota, American Crystal Sugar. All together, Musgrave's gotten more than $46,000 from sugar interests for her campaigns over the years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

So when Rep. Marilyn Musgrave  announced yesterday that she would push to "preserve Colorado's legacy of quality sugar production," now that she has been appointed to the conference committee tasked with hammering out the final version of the multi-billion dollar farm bill, she may not just have Colorado on her mind.

Fair enough one might say. The sugarbeet growers of Colorado have an interest in common with the sugar cane growers of Florida in preserving the sugar program-even if consumer groups have long decried it for artificially propping up sugar prices, and even if sugar cane farming has caused environmental devastation in the Florida Everglades.

But it shows how intractable a problem it is to reform our country's agricultural policies. The powerful agricultural and food lobbies pour campaign cash into the coffers of members of Congress-particularly those, like Musgrave, with seats on the Agriculture Committee. Consumer and environmental groups don't have the financial resources to compete.

Indeed, the subsidy heavy farm bill that Musgrave will be a part of finalizing has been decried by the left as promoting policies that contribute to obesity and dependence on petrochemicals. (See: Michael Pollan, food writing guru.)  And conservative groups are unhappy about all the pork (and they're not just talking pigs).

While Musgrave made some laudable effort last year to ensure that food banks got funding in the bill, she ended up voting against the final measure. This was because, she said, because of new taxes it would impose on multinational companies. What she didn't mention in her press release at the time was that the $4 billion raised by increasing taxes on multinationals that operate U.S. subsidiaries was designated for food stamps and other nutrition programs.

Of course her list of campaign contributors also includes numerous multinational companies, including Altria (owner of Philip Morris), Pepsico, and Conagra. Put that in the category of things that make you say "hmm."

[crossposted at Muckraking Mom and at PoliticsWest.com.