I do think they are paying farmers to plow-over their crops. I've seen two combines out mowing down soy/corn and shooting it straight onto the ground. It could also be however that these fields didn't do well or something; we had very little rain around here this summer.
Apparently this isn't really an uncommon thing; to keep prices up, they pay farmers to waste excess food. It's incredibly fucking retarded either way.
Yeah, politicians.