WASHINGTON — Amid a crisis of low milk prices and mounting losses in dairy country, lawmakers in Congress are fashioning a $350 million emergency aid package aimed at helping struggling milk farmers.

Secretive talks on Capitol Hill have produced a tentative compromise, slated to be unveiled today, that would leave it to Agriculture Department chief Tom Vilsack to figure out how to deliver most of the aid, $290 million. It's unclear how much farmers struggling with low prices would benefit.

The original $350 million plan was passed by the Senate in August without any binding directions about how the money would help farmers.

But the poisonous politics of dairy subsidies hung over recent informal House-Senate talks — an official session is slated for this afternoon — as supporters of small dairy operations in states like Wisconsin and Vermont wrangled with lawmakers such as Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose state is host to huge dairy farms.

According to congressional aides briefed on the closed-door talks, much of the $290 million would be devoted to direct monetary payments to dairy farmers, while $60 million would be spent on purchasing stocks of surplus cheese and other dairy products in hopes of raising prices. The food would be given to food banks.