A budget plan unveiled by Senate Republicans on Wednesday proposed to cut $35 billion from the federal budget, including a $3 billion cut from United States Department of Agriculture programs.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, voted against the cuts and criticized the plan.

“The Republicans in Congress and the White House are asking the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, rural America and farmers, to sacrifice while at the same time worsening the deficit by rewarding the wealthiest with more tax giveaways,” Harkin said in a statement.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, could not be reached for comment Monday.

The Republican proposal will cut 300,000 low-income Americans from receiving food assistance by slashing $570 million for food aid, cut farm-income support promised in a 2002 farm bill, and cut land-conservation programs by more than $1 billion during the next five years.

In March, $3 billion was assigned to be cut from programs in the Agriculture Committee’s jurisdiction, but the specific cuts were not finalized until early October because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Taking money out of land conservation programs is a mistake, Harkin said, because the programs are important for the environment and are largely supported by the public.

The public is more likely to support programs that have a conservation aspect to them, said Mike Duffy, professor of economics.

Although other states will be affected by the cuts, the large amount of farmland in Iowa leaves the state especially susceptible, Duffy said.

“Iowa may be among the most affected because we have more farm land,” he said.

More land will be moved into production instead of lying fallow because farmers will be paid less to leave some ground idle, he said.

Although these plans are on their way to becoming policy, Joe Colletti, interim senior associate dean for the College of Agriculture, said it is important to remember that these are still just proposals.

Colletti said difficult decisions about the federal budget have to be made by Congress because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the war in Iraq.

“Anything that cuts the safety net for Iowa farmers is not a good thing,” Colletti said. “There needs to be a type of safety net protecting those on the production side.”

Harkin said he disagrees with cutting support for farmers at this time.

“While farmers are facing record energy prices and depressed commodity prices, Washington is cutting assistance to rural communities and agriculture,” he said.

Dave Townsend, Harkin’s press secretary, said the purpose of the programs is to provide safety nets for farmers who are dependent on their crops for their income.

“The worst thing to be cut out are the food programs,” Townsend said. “It cuts more than $5 million from poor and needy and would prevent 300,000 people from getting food stamps.”

Townsend said because poverty rates have been decreasing for the past four years and the program has been successful, funding to successful programs should not be cut.

“Ever-increasing poverty and greater need for helping low-income families after the hurricanes have not changed Washington’s mentality,” Harkin said. “This proposal is an unconscionable slap in the face at America’s poor.”