WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush will propose cutting farmers’ federal payments and other agriculture supports by more than a half-billion dollars next year, a plan already drawing warnings from Congress.

Producers would see payments drop by 5 percent, a senior administration official said Friday. The ceiling on those payments, $360,000 annually, would drop to $250,000, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the budget won’t be released until Monday.

The administration’s goal is to cut the deficit, projected to rise to $427 billion this year, in half by 2009. Farm programs would be cut by at least $587 million next year and $5.7 billion over 10 years.

Payments to farmers and other aid to them had been projected to drop from $24.06 billion this year to $19.64 billion in 2006, but Bush’s proposal would push spending down to $19.05 billion.

Two-thirds of the savings would come from the reduction in direct payments to crop and dairy producers.

Bush also will ask Congress in the budget to close loopholes that have let large farming operations collect subsidies well above the limit.

Congress is open to cutting farm spending if Bush proposes government-wide budget cuts, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss said Friday.

“But if they try to single out the farm bill, then we’re going to have one heck of a fight,” Chambliss, R-Ga., told reporters.

One group of farmers will get more, largely the result of last year’s election. The administration plans to extend the milk support program due to expire in September. In the heat of his re-election campaign, Bush declared his support for the program during a visit to the Wisconsin, a dairy state that was also a presidential battleground. Ultimately, Democrat John Kerry won the state.

The Milk Income Loss Contract program pays dairy farmers when market prices dip. As now structured, it benefits smaller farms in the Midwest and Northeast much more than large-scale operations out West.

The official said the cuts are not intended to signal a new direction for the next farm bill, which will be written in 2006.

The official outlined cuts in subsidy programs that are part of the 2002 farm bill but would not discuss the fate of other Agriculture Department programs, such as food stamps and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC.

Sugar producers, who operate under a different system and don’t get payments, would see loan rates drop by 1.2 percent.

The administration also proposes some limits on availability of marketing assistance loans and changes in the crop insurance loan program.