President Barack Obama is expected to sign an agriculture appropriations bill this week that contains millions in direct aide to the nation’s dairy farmers.

The 2010 Agriculture Appropriations Act, which passed the U.S. House on Thursday and the Senate on Friday, contains $350 million that will benefit dairy farmers. Of that amount, $60 million will be used for cheese and other dairy product purchases. The commodity purchases will be used by the government to fill food banks for struggling families that have been hit by economic hard times.

The remainder of $290 million, earmarked for direct aid to dairy farmers, will be distributed at the discretion of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who is expected to rely heavily on the expertise of his dairy advisory committee. The funding is not expected to resolve the long-term problems plaguing dairy farmers, but should help many producers through the current financial crisis.

The appropriations bill totals $121.2 billion, including $23.3 billion in discretionary spending. Although many areas and programs received reduced federal funding as a part of the appropriations bill, Congress provided no funds for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network, which was authorized as a part of the Farm Bill. Without the program, many states continue to scramble to meet the behavioral health needs of agricultural and rural workers under economic stress.

One of the areas that saw an increase in funding was the national food stamp program, which received $58.2 billion. That, when combined with stimulus monies from earlier in the year, results in a 19 percent increase from last year’s levels.

A program to assess the safety of Chinese chicken imports, heavily backed by the National Pork Producers Council, was also included in the bill. Language included in the bill allows the USDA to conduct scientific risk assessments on the safety of the processed chicken imports from China.