AGRICULTURE

U.S. to Make Big Corn Donation: The Agriculture Department announced that it will buy $100 million worth for donation overseas. But some farmers said the plan is too modest to overcome the price-depressing effects of a record crop. Farmers say this year’s low prices could help push thousands of them off the land, despite a string of election-eve efforts by the Bush Administration to expand markets for U.S. farm products at home and abroad with credit guarantees and export subsidies. In the latest plan, Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan said the USDA will buy 1 million metric tons of corn to donate to emerging democracies in the former Soviet Union.