HOWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Juan George gets worked up about the U.S. farm bill.

He bristles that Congress provides disproportionately large benefits to growers in the Midwest and the South while ignoring small organic farms like the 60-acre Merrick Farm in New Jersey he's been running since the mid-1990s with his wife, Susan Keymer.

Congress is considering retooling the farm bill this year to boost organic agriculture and help small- and medium-sized growers outside the nation's agricultural belt. George said such an overhaul is overdue because small organic farmers find it hard to compete against big, factory-like operations.

"The game is skewed in favor of the big guys because they have the most money, they have the most friends in Congress," George, 57, said recently on his farm. "And in the end, the big guys get the biggest crumbs. How about us down here?"

The new version of the farm bill, which must be renewed every five years, making its way through Congress deals with not only what Americans eat but also how it gets to their table, allows millions of low-income Americans to feed their families, helps rural America survive economically and protects farmland from sprawl in urbanized states like New Jersey.

Some lawmakers like Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., have introduced legislation to boost federal assistance for organic farming that they hope would become part of the new farm bill.

Chad Hart, an Iowa State University agriculture economist who's closely tracking the farm bill's progress, said it's not clear how much federal help organic growers would get. So far, Congress has signaled it will help organic growers get higher insurance payments if their harvest fails, Hart said. Crop failure hits organic growers especially hard because it's more expensive to raise crops without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, he said.

Subsidies to growers of 20 commodity crops, including wheat, barley, oats, peanuts, corn, soybeans, rice and cotton, are the most controversial items in the current farm bill. Under this program of direct payments to growers, the federal government guarantees growers a set price regardless of how much they grow or how much the market will pay.

Hart said fruit and vegetable growers aren't eligible for these subsidies under current congressional mandates. Pressure is growing for Congress to change that.

About one-third of the $300 billion to $400 billion spent over the farm bill's five-year lifetime is devoted to direct payments, and most of that money goes to commodity crop growers in Iowa, Texas, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, Indiana, Arkansas, Missouri and California.

But growers of specialty crops like George and Keymer don't qualify for price subsidies and assume much of their own risk.

Under a financial cloud, the couple grows herbs like cilantro and basil, flowering plants like azaleas, and fruits and vegetables like raspberries, peaches, lettuce, peppers and tomatoes.

They grow crops on 20 acres without using chemically produced pesticides and fertilizers. Instead, they use compost made out of manure and leaves and other natural substances. Woodland and pasture cover the remaining 40 acres, where they also keep a few dozen cows, just as Keymer's family has done since buying the farm in 1908 as a dairy operation.

Keymer said Merrick Farm makes less than $20,000 a year. She and George drive school buses to supplement their agricultural income and get health insurance.

While Merrick Farm has received a hefty chunk of taxpayer dollars — $600,000 — to preserve the 60-acre property as farmland in perpetuity, Keymer said she had to pay virtually all of that to Uncle Sam a few years ago as taxes after she inherited the farm from her aunt.

Keymer seeks federal grants to buy a new tractor, install a new irrigation system and buy a wood-burning furnace to heat the floor of their greenhouses.

"That's what we're looking for from the farm bill — new equipment," Keymer said. "My goal is this: to build a business here with organic produce to the point where we can either walk out of it or sell it to somebody and have the farm remain. I love my family's farm. But the reality is nobody does it forever."