Farm Payments: Benefits and Costs of Trading in USDA Commodity Certificates

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed reported abuses in the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Payment-in-Kind (PIK) Certificate Program to determine: (1) the volume of grain involved in long-distance transactions, in which commodity certificate holders exploited differing market values; (2) the monetary benefits gained from such transactions; (3) how the benefits were distributed; and (4) the cost to the government.