Brussels, 27/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - The draft United States budget for 2010, unveiled on Thursday 26 February 2009, will reduce direct payments to the biggest farms (those with annual turnover of over $500,000), reduce subsidies for high income farmers and scrap an aid programme for cotton farmers, a sensitive issue for farmers in Africa. These savings will be balanced by the introduction of a child nutrition programme worth a billion dollars a year. Savings in other areas will reduce the overall US farm budget by $25 million in 2011 and just under a billion dollars in 2013 and thereafter. Addressing Congress on 24 February 2009, President Obama pledged to restrict farm subsidies in the United States by ending the direct aid to big farm businesses that don't need it. The demand for a reduction in farm subsidies in the rich world, particularly the United States and the EU, by developing countries is a key issue in the Doha trade round. Washington's planned reductions are a step in the right direction but the aid in question creates less competition distortion than other subsidies that rise when prices fall or when there is a bad harvest. (E.H. trans fl)