"I ask Congress to support an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world, so we can build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine," Bush told lawmakers, Supreme Court justices and other dignitaries on gathered on Capitol Hill.

The United States, the world's largest food aid provider, now requires that almost all food assistance programs purchase U.S. crops and ship them overseas, a practice that is costly and can slow the delivery of aid for months.

As oil and commodity prices soar, relatively stable aid budgets buy less and less food for hungry nations.

The administration has been lobbying for a change to food aid purchasing rules for years, but it is a deeply unpopular idea with the shipping and commodity interests that benefit from the current system.

Administration officials were unable to convince House and Senate lawmakers, who last year passed bills that would set food aid policy for the next five years, to allow up to a quarter of emergency food aid to be bought overseas.

The legislation, part of a broad agriculture law, is now being merged by the House and Senate, and will then be sent to Bush for signature.

Bush has threatened to veto the bill, chiefly because it would increase taxes and fails to cut off farm subsidies for the richest Americans.