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In our recent “Villains of the Food System poll,” the Congressional ag committees placed a respectable second, bested (worsted?) only by GMO-seed giant Monsanto.

We characterized the committees as a “two-headed, yet seemingly brainless monster … fattened by steady influxes of agrichemical industry cash.” Its crime: Always managing to stymie federal food-policy reform.

Well, one of that hoary monster’s heads is about to get radical plastic surgery. The New York Times’ highly regarded election-handicapping guru Nate Silver gives the current chair of the Senate ag committee, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), a 0.1 percent chance of winning re-election next week. Getting a reading like that from Silver is like being on life support and seeing Dr. Kevorkian’s friendly mug looming over your bed.

Lincoln’s tenure as ag committee chair has been short; she took over after Ted Kennedy’s death last year, when previous chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) replaced Kennedy atop the Senate health committee. Throughout her career in the Senate, Lincoln has been a reliable champion of her state’s large-scale cotton producers and industrial-meat interests.

So who’s up for the ag committee chair? Politico reports that Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is next in line, as the highest-ranking committee member who doesn’t already chair a major committee.