33 



Mrs. Thurman. It looks like you have a friend. 



Mr. Nussle. I have friends outside the district. She is somebody 

 who understands these issues. 



It is an honor to have them here today. I appreciate the oppor- 

 tunity to introduce them. 



Mrs. Thurman. Mr. Nussle, we appreciate that. 



I will just follow up and say that we appreciate anybody that 

 gets involved in their government and does make a difference. I 

 hope that you let people at home know that, because we think that 

 when people do become involved and have experiences and give us 

 that knowledge, that it certainly allows us — and certainly with Mr. 

 Nussle — the opportunity to carry forth those issues and those con- 

 cerns on a real, live basis. If more people did that and were in- 

 volved in our Government, I think we would have a democracy that 

 all of us would be proud of. 



With that, who would like to go first? 



STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY PECKOSH, MEMBER, BOARD OF DI- 

 RECTORS, IOWA NURSERY AND LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION, 

 ON BEHALF OF THE IOWA STATE HORTICULTURE SOCIETY 



Mrs. PECKOSH. Thank you very much. 



Thank you, Jim, for the very nice introduction. Thank you, com- 

 mittee members, for giving me the opportunity to testify. 



I am testifying on behalf of the Iowa State Horticulture Society; 

 I would like to back up a minute to tell you that the commercial 

 horticultural crop producers that I am representing here today are 

 specialty crop growers, growers of fruits, vegetables, Christmas 

 trees, nursery stock, and flowers. 



I really could almost say ditto to what has already been said. I 

 think we are all on the same wavelength here; that, we recognize 

 the fact that our crops are very unique, and that our crops require 

 very unique production techniques, especially in relationship to 

 what we refer to as traditional row crop farming. 



Also, many of our crops are perennial, requiring many years of 

 investment in labor and care before we are ever going to harvest 

 the crop or realize any income at all from the crop. 



Some of our concerns about disaster assistance are that the 

 USDA recognize the uniqueness of our crops and help establish ap- 

 propriate disaster assistance guidelines to reflect our true crop 

 losses. The flooding last summer hurt all of agriculture in Iowa. 

 Our losses of specialty crops were just as real, and our loss of in- 

 come was just as devastating to us as the losses incurred in tradi- 

 tional row crop agriculture. 



The horticultural crop producers that I represent developed an 

 issue sheet outlining some of our specific concerns. That is attached 

 to my written testimony, and my written testimony provides details 

 and further explains those issues. I will not go through that right 

 now. 



I just want to say that it is very obvious that there are many 

 quirks and inconsistencies that prevent our growers from accessing 

 assistance. I was pleased the USDA was here for a time. I, too, am 

 very sorry that they are not here now. 



I do not know who in the nursery industry the USDA talked to 

 in developing their program for the nursery industry, but my per- 



