WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Monday proposed to end a “direct payment” subsidy that gives $5 billion a year to farmers regardless of need, as part of his larger effort to reduce the federal budget deficit.

Direct payments, created in 1996 as a temporary measure, will be the largest farm subsidy this year and terminating them would be a dramatic re-shaping of the U.S. farm program.

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Ethanol appears almost certain to win the food-versus-fuel contest in the United States. But not just yet.

The Agriculture Department forecast that a tad more corn will be used to make ethanol than to feed livestock this year may be a false milestone: ethanol makers say they won’t use that much corn while producing a record amount of the biofuel, hewing to a more efficient conversion rate.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. corn stocks will languish near 15-year lows for longer than expected as ethanol plants overtake livestock as the biggest consumers of the feed grain and China buys more American corn, according to government forecasts.

The U.S. Agriculture Department, as expected, boosted its forecasts on Tuesday of ending stocks this year and next, largely due to weaker-than-expected consumption by the livestock sector this year. But the revisions fell short of analysts’ forecasts and supported prices that have fallen 15 percent from their peak on signs of healthier supplies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) Futures regulators will gain much more muscle to crack down on market manipulation under a rule set to be finalized on Thursday as part of the financial overhaul passed a year ago.

The rule would expand the CFTC’s ability to prosecute market manipulation by requiring that it show a trader acted recklessly — a less burdensome standard of proof than it faces now. For the first time, it would allow the CFTC to prosecute fraud-based manipulation.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some 90,000 people living in U.S. cities pocketed $394 million in U.S. farm subsidies last year, an environmental group said on Thursday, questioning why absentee owners and investors deserve the cash.

The Environmental Working Group released the data just before a Senate committee review of Agriculture Department spending and while lawmakers try to rein in federal spending.

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) – Some 90,000 people living
in U.S. cities pocketed $394 million in U.S. farm subsidies
last year, an environmental group said on Thursday, questioning
why absentee owners and investors deserve the cash.

The Environmental Working Group released the data just
before a Senate committee review of Agriculture Department
spending and while lawmakers try to rein in federal spending.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Republican-controlled committee in the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday for an 18-month delay of regulations intended to reduce risk in the vast over-the-counter derivatives market in response to the financial crisis.

The delay may be passed by the House but has little chance of becoming law. There is no similar Senate bill and futures regulators say they do not need the additional time.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Programs that help poor mothers buy food and that share the cost of land stewardship would be cut under government-wide reductions unveiled on Tuesday.

The cuts are part of an agreement that averted a government shutdown. Lawmakers were to vote on the $28 billion package this week.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Reform of biofuel subsidies that cost $6 billion a year could hitch-hike its way to enactment on a must-pass spending bill, leaders of two ethanol trade groups said on Monday.

They said the industry generally agrees on reforms that would replace the 45-cent-a-gallon tax credit that is the major incentive to produce corn-based ethanol, the major biofuel now being produced.

WASHINGTON, April 5 (Reuters) – The House Budget Committee
Chairman proposed to slash farm spending by $30 billion over 10
years in a package unveiled on Tuesday as part of his
controversial plan to tackle the giant federal budget deficit.

Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan called for a reduction in
the $5 billion-a-year in “direct payments” made to growers each
year regardless of need. The payments are based on past
production of grain, cotton and soybeans.