Keeping in line with the Obama administration's stated goal of helping rural America despite tough fiscal times, the president's proposed $144 billion agriculture budget for fiscal 2012 cuts direct payments to high-income farmers and promises investments in renewable and clean energy.

The budget proposal also includes a more than $1 billion cut in what conservation programs would have received under the farm bill. It does, however, include the highest funding levels for two key programs that conserve wetlands and provide assistance to farmers to make environmental improvements.

The budget proposal for the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides $23.9 billion for discretionary funding, a decrease of $3.2 billion from current levels. Aside from limiting conservation programs, the budget targets homeownership programs and proposes a decrease in agricultural spending of $2.5 billion over 10 years by reducing payments to wealthy farmers.

"Given the unique needs of rural farm and non-farm communities, the president's budget proposes to refocus and reprioritize assistance to rural America to more appropriately address these needs," said a statement accompanying the budget.

The request to reduce payments to wealthy farmers is similar to measures that Obama has attempted in his last two budget proposals. Farm-state lawmakers have traditionally fought hard to keep farm subsidies in place.

Also with the goal of helping rural America, the budget proposes $6.5 billion in financial assistance to electric cooperatives, research institutes and small businesses for expanding renewable energy and biofuels.

The bulk of that money will be targeted to "decrease the nation's reliance on fossil fuels and promote renewable and clean energy at electric generation, transmission and distribution sites in rural communities," the budget proposal says.

The Environmental Working Group said it supports the proposal but is not "terribly supportive" of the funding given to bioenergy in the budget.

"We're always spending more and more money on trying to get the next generation of biofuels, and it always seems one generation away," said David DeGennaro, legislative and policy analyst at the Environmental Working Group.

The budget proposal, however, puts a cap on the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which provides financial assistance to landowners who wish to produce biomass feedstocks, according to Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Cuts in conservation programs do not touch mandatory funding laid out in the 2008 farm bill. But these programs will lose more than $1 billion from what they should have received under the growth levels laid out in the farm bill, according to Hoefner.

The proposal is "just nuts to be going into the writing of the 2012 farm bill and cutting that much out of conservation before you even get started," Hoefner said.

The budget, however, includes the highest funding levels ever for the Wetlands Reserve Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The wetlands program would receive $785 million to enroll 271,000 acres in 2012, a $59 million increase from current funding levels. EQIP would receive more than $1.4 billion for assistance for farms needing to make environmental improvements.

DeGennaro called these two proposals "fairly good for conservation."

But relative to growth levels written in the farm bill, EQIP is being cut by approximately $340 million and the wetlands program by $400 million, Hoefner said.

The Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to idle their land, would be maintained at the current enrollment level of 32 million acres. The proposed budget also gives $788 million toward the Conservation Stewardship Program, an increase from last year, but proposes to reduce enrollment in the program by 764,000 acres.

The stewardship program proposal is the same as one last year that did not make it through Congress.

The administration has also proposed targeting "high-priority ecosystems" in its remaining conservation funding. Funding will focus on the Chesapeake Bay, the Bay-Delta region in California and the Upper Mississippi River Basin.

In relation to deficit reduction, the EQIP cuts would contribute to reduction in fiscal 2012. But cuts in other conservation programs are targeted at long-term baselines and will result in "little if any gain in fiscal year 2012," Hoefner said.

"They're not getting much savings in [fiscal] '12. They're getting big savings after FY '12 by reducing the amount that will be available for the next farm bill," he said.

DeGennaro said that overall, he was pretty happy with the budget proposal, the cuts in direct payments and the boost to the two major conservation programs.

"From the first look, we think they've targeted a lot of cuts to what we think are responsible areas," he said.