The U.S. Senate has a shot at fixing the 70-year-old farm subsidies program, which up to now has devolved into a multibillion-dollar payout padding the pockets of some of the wealthiest growers.

Debate this week on the Senate floor provides a clear choice between a system only marginally better than a plan passed earlier this summer by the House or a revamped Senate version put forward by Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D- N.J., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., that directs aid where it is most needed.

The House plan grants huge payouts to lucrative row crop farmers, including, corn, rice, and soybean growers whose incomes can exceed $1 million a year.

The Senate plan eventually bans payments to "nonfarmers" (those who earn less than two-thirds of their income from agriculture) whose incomes average over $750,000 per year. That's no comfort.

Even more galling is the fact that the lucky one-tenth of farmers who pull in more than half the subsidies would continue to get these payments regardless of market conditions. Corn farmers, who are enjoying high profits due to the demand for ethanol, would still get subsidized.

The good news is that the Lautenberg-Lugar approach, offered as an amendment to the Senate plan now on the table, is sensible and deserves support. Their plan trades existing farm subsidies for premium-free crop insurance that would apply to all farms, including fruit and vegetable growers who thus far have seen little benefit from the farm bill. Commodity farmers would get the subsidies only when price collapses or bad weather triggers a drop in income of more than 15 percent.

A key hurdle will be convincing lawmakers from farm states to end their sweet deal.

If the Senate fails to pass the Lautenberg-Lugar version, President Bush should veto the Senate plan — and send lawmakers back to the drawing board until they help struggling farmers truly in need of assistance.