Washington - -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi marshaled a 318-vote, veto-proof majority to pass a $290 billion farm bill that will lock in the nation's food policy for five years while granting $3 billion in first-ever money to support California fruits and vegetables.

The bill, expected to pass the Senate today, also by a veto-proof margin, includes as much as $40 billion in subsidies to commodity farmers who already enjoy record prices. It also contains a new $3.8 billion "permanent disaster" program that will create powerful incentives to plow millions of acres of prairie grasslands, which could release tons of harmful carbon into the atmosphere.

The bill also will raise spending on food stamps, food banks and other aid to the needy by $10.4 billion, drawing votes from urban Democrats openly skeptical of raising subsidies to wealthy grain farmers during a global food crisis.

The overwhelming House vote quashed hopes by food, conservation and taxpayer groups that the Democratic-led Congress would seize a period of record farm prosperity to shift U.S. food policy from a 1930s model that subsidizes industrial food production to a modernized approach that could aid more farmers and address new public health and environmental goals.

'The right direction' Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, called the bill a "very big step in the right direction," pointing to the food and conservation spending bundled with the commodity subsidies to ensure passage.

A farm couple will be allowed to earn up to $2.5 million a year before government payments are cut off under new rules that lawmakers called a major reform. An urban couple applying for food stamps is cut off at $17,808 in income and may own only one car.

Democrats also expanded subsidies to new crops and raised subsidy levels, exposing taxpayers to billions more in costs should commodity prices retreat. The payments go to a minority of farmers of a few crops and are highly concentrated among the biggest operations. Nine of every 10 farmers in California do not get crop subsidies.

Asked how she could justify paying so much money to wealthy farmers when food prices are rising and Democrats are calling for change in Washington, Pelosi listed the bill's nutrition and conservation spending.

"I justify it by saying this is the best farm bill I've ever voted on," Pelosi said. "It is probably the last farm bill that will look like this."

Every Bay Area Democrat voted for the bill but one: liberal East Bay Rep. Pete Stark.

"It is a rare day indeed that I agree with President Bush," Stark said, "but he is absolutely right to have issued a veto threat of this bill."

The legislation is loaded with special-interest earmarks. California salmon fishermen get a $170 million bailout added by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. Kentucky thoroughbred racehorse owners get a $126 million tax write-off. The bill will force the federal government to sell parts of the Green Mountain National Forest to a Vermont ski resort.

The earmarks swamp the new $105 million allotted to organic farming over five years and other aid sought by Bay Area groups promoting sustainable agriculture. The $3 billion in research and marketing for fruits and vegetables is a tenth of what will go out in direct payments for wheat, corn, soybeans, cotton, rice and other commodity crops.

Tom Nassif, president of Western Growers, representing California produce growers, was grateful that Congress for the first time included fruits, nuts and vegetables in a farm bill. He said he did not want produce growers to get in a fight with subsidized grain farmers because "we were going to lose that battle."

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