WASHINGTON - A farm bill agreement reached Thursday would have far-reaching effects in Wyoming and Montana, from permanent disaster relief to Farm Service Agency offices remaining open to controversial benefits for timber companies.

Most of those provisions were pushed by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., whose committee wrote the tax portions and found ways to pay for an extra $10 billion for the bill. House Republicans tried but failed to strip both the disaster relief fund and a provision benefiting Plum Creek Timber and the Nature Conservancy in Montana.

Other provisions important to the West would improve country-of-origin labeling requirements and allow small meatpackers to ship their product across state lines.

The overall bill would increase nutrition programs including food stamps and food banks, expand subsidies for some crops and boost conservation programs. It must still be passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Bush, who has threatened to veto it.

Baucus secured inclusion of a permanent fund to remove uncertainty over federal aid now faced by ranchers and farmers affected by drought and other disasters. The $3.8 billion program would assist farmers who lose their crops or livestock due to disasters, but they must have crop insurance to participate.

"It gives them some certainty, a little comfort that if there's a disaster, heaven forbid but there generally are, that assistance is in place, they don't have to go begging to the Congress to at some point, some year pass legislation which doesn't pay very much, which is inefficient," Baucus said.

The National Farmers Union had made the fund its top priority. Baucus and other supporters clashed with lawmakers who wanted to use the money for other items such as conservation. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., introduced a measure to strip it from the bill, saying Congress in the future would still pass emergency spending bills on top of the money in the fund.

But the House voted down Flake's measure 274-128 on Thursday.

The bill also would establish a controversial program allowing nonprofit groups to issue $500 million in tax-credit timber conservation bonds to buy private forest lands near Forest Service acres. House Republicans strongly objected. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., introduced a measure to strip it from the bill, calling it the "bridge to nowhere" earmark of the farm bill.

Cantor said it was written so narrowly that only one piece of land would qualify, owned by Plum Creek and located mostly in Montana, so the Nature Conservancy could purchase it. "It is time for us to say 'no' to these types of backroom deals that have been struck in the middle of the night that benefit a wealthy few," Cantor said on the House floor.

But Baucus called the measure a public-private partnership that would serve as a model for other parts of the country to protect forest lands from being subdivided into tract houses. He said the company could make more money subdividing.

"We've got to find a way to stop this prolific subdividing of good land, and this is a way to help," he said. "It's very important to Montana."

Cantor's measure failed 222-169 on Thursday.

The farm bill agreement would require all Farm Service Agency offices more than 20 miles apart to stay open for at least two years. That would prevent the proposed closure of seven offices in Montana.

The bill also contains a provision to help smaller meatpackers to compete by allowing them to ship across state lines. The optional program would allow the packers to continue to use state inspectors to apply federal standards, so they could send products to other states.

It also included a compromise on country-of-origin labeling for meat to address concerns that the law was complicated and somewhat ambiguous.

Specific definitions are spelled out for labeling meat as produced in the United States, of mixed origin, or as imported. It establishes what would qualify as satisfactory documentation for a USDA audit, including normal business records, animal health papers or custom documents.

The bill would also raise from $250,000 to $450,000 the loan limit for "Aggie Bonds" for first-time ranchers and farmers.