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ment, on what the USDA said in response to their testimony and 

 questions? 



Mr. Wells. May I interject? 



Mr. Lewis. Yes. 



Mr. Wells. Just what Mr. Badger has said, if the pressure can 

 be put on USDA to come forward and revamp with the proper pro- 

 grams and use that as the cap, I think the actual borrowed dollars 

 spent in the disaster program in the final analysis would be consid- 

 erably less if you in fact subsidized the crop insurance program, 

 made everybody buy the crop insurance program, and say either 

 you buy it or you are out the door. 



If you look at it in a very hard business like attitude, subsidized 

 crop insurance, let everybody be covered and say there ain't no dis- 

 aster payments. You buy crop insurance. We are going to subsidize 

 it. At the end of the road, the Federal Government will be better 

 off than they otherwise would be to continue a disaster program. 

 That is our position. 



Mr. Gallant. Whereas I agree with the objective of insurance, 

 there is still some others outside of that norm of protection, such 

 as the cleanup costs. That is not covered by an insurance program. 



I think certainly that is one of the recommendations that I think 

 you made, Congressman, to have people involved in specialty crops 

 visit USDA. That is the key to this whole thing to get it to work. 



Mr. Wells. May I make one quick observation? You heard a lit- 

 tle talk about the Farmers Home Administration. Let me give you 

 a one-line synopsis of the farmers' loan program. It benefits the 

 poor farmer and penalizes the good farmer. The guy that can go 

 and get a Farmers Home Administration loan, more often than not, 

 really doesn't need to be in business. 



That is about the best way that I can describe it to you. The guy 

 is a good farmer. He can get money. 



Mr. Lewis. Let me ask another question in regard to disaster as- 

 sistance. Would you prefer to have disaster assistance or would you 

 prefer to have crop insurance or a continued combination of both? 

 You are not getting very much of one right now. 



Mr. Wells. I would rather growers respond to that. 



Mr. Olszack. I think a reasonable crop insurance is preferable. 

 Under the crop insurance we have seen it is subject to a lot of let's 

 say inconsistent policies that doesn't really meet the needs of the 

 growers. 



If we can forge a good Federal crop insurance program for crop 

 insurers with the input from the industry, I think that goes a long 

 way toward resolving those problems. 



Mr. Wells. You got your money too, you got it quick. As he said, 

 they had $6 to $7 million of crop insurance in Dade County and 

 they had the checks within 2 weeks. 



Mr. Kirby. I think a crop insurance program with input from in- 

 dustry would probably be better for everybody. There are inconsist- 

 encies. Many believe this one regarding the tree issue. The tree 

 issue is a real problem. Under one of his options, the CON for not 

 selecting that particular option says this option would not be pro- 

 ducer friendly, and yet the Secretary approved that option for insti- 

 tutions which eliminates dead trees from receiving crop year losses 

 that was again spelled out in the legislation for 1992, 1993, 1994, 



