A program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that pays farmers for stopping or limiting the planting and production of specific products. For instance, the USDA offered sugar cane and sugar beet growers the choice of not producing some of their 2001 crop in exchange for receiving sugar that was already in storage that the farms could sell. The PIK program was started by USDA Secretary John Block in 1983, during Ronald ReaganÂ’s administration.