WASHINGTON -- Illinois and Iowa farm lawmakers heaped praise on the compromise Farm Bill announced Thursday, pledging to help get it past a threatened presidential veto.

The $300 billion, five-year bill, which sets farm subsidy laws and funds the nation's nutrition programs, emerged from a House-Senate conference committee with the backing of Democrats and Republicans on their respective agriculture and financing panels. A key architect was Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee.

"I am a happy man," Sen. Harkin said at a press conference held to unveil the deal after weeks of back-room negotiations. He said the bill accomplishes the goals of providing a safety net for farmers, boosts land conservation and alternative fuel production, ensures continued reliable food supplies to consumers, and expands nutrition programs to the poor and to schools.

"This is a bill that should pass with large margins in both houses," he said, calling it a "bipartisan, multi-regional" bill.

Rep. Phil Hare, D-Rock Island, and Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Waterloo, both said they backed the bill.

Rep. Hare said it met his criteria of providing a safety net for farmers, boosting the production of biofuels and increasing nutrition programs, particularly to food banks. "Looking at it right off the top, it looks like a very good bill, and I hope the president signs it," he said.

For Rep. Braley, who is not on the House Agriculture Committee, the bill marked a victory in getting his New Era legislation included. It would provide grants for renewable energy work force education at community colleges.

"I applaud the conference committee reaching an agreement on the Farm Bill, and I'm excited that my New Era program boosting renewable energy work force education is a part of the agreed-upon bill," Rep. Braley said in a statement.

Comment was not immediately available from Illinois Democratic Sens. Barack Obama or Dick Durbin, nor Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Art Bunting, a Dwight corn, soybean and wheat farmer who is president of the Illinois Corn Growers, praised Sen. Durbin for championing the new Average Crops Revenue Election program, which will set revenue minimums for crops based on state averages in return for reduced reliance on loan and target price programs. "That's really the most important part of it for corn growers," Mr. Bunting said.

Rep. Ray LaHood, a Republican from Peoria who sits on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, said the bill is "very good for Illinois," in that it boosts food aid to food banks and through the food stamp program and also strengthens conservation and commodity support prices.

"We need that safety net," Rep. LaHood said, noting that current commodity prices are high but have been traditionally low. "For the first time in 50 years, corn and bean prices are at a level where farmers can actually make some money, but that's the first time in 50 years," he said.

In eastern Illinois, Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana and the lone Illinoisan on the the House Agriculture Committee, was cautiously supportive, noting that he had yet to see the bill's specifics. "It appears to be a reform-minded bill with a new revenue-based counter-cyclical program that will be a safety net for our farmers," he said in a statement.

The Farm Bill would:

-- Increase nutrition programs, including food stamps and emergency domestic food assistance, by more than $10 billion and expand a program providing fresh fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren;

-- Expand subsidies for certain crops, extend dairy programs and increase loan rates for sugar producers. It also includes language calling on the federal government to buy surplus sugar and sell it to ethanol producers to mix with corn;

-- Eliminate some payments to individuals who make more than $750,000 or married farmers who make more than $1.5 million in farm income annually. Individuals who make more than $500,000 in non-farm income also would be ineligible for subsidies;

-- Cuts a per-gallon tax credit from 51 cents to 45 cents to blend fuel with corn-based ethanol in favor of more money for cellulosic ethanol made from plant matter;

-- Add dollars for farmland conservation programs;

-- Eliminate loopholes that now allow farmers to collect subsidies for multiple farm businesses;

-- Cut expanded food assistance for an international school lunch program in the House farm bill last year;

-- Pay farmers for weather-related farm losses out of a $3.8 billion disaster assistance fund;

-- Give tax breaks to race horse owners.