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contacted by the ASCS Washington staff for details concerning the 

 nature of crops on Kauai. There was no information from clients to the 

 decision makers that would have helped set a policy that truly 

 assisted farmers. 



The simplest way to have administered the program would have been to 

 begin the crop disaster payment year on the day of the hurricane. This 

 would have assisted all growers of all crops without the inherent 

 prejudice of using the calendar year. Trees that had been harvested in 

 the year of the hurricane but prior to the disaster would be covered, 

 crops harvested weekly would have been covered. The decisions on 

 policy that came out of Washington carried out neither the spirit or 

 the letter of the law. There was to be no payment for production lost 

 from dead fruit trees, yet there was to one lump sum payment for dead 

 nursery stock! Both of these crops were to be harvested in the years 

 1993, 94 and 95 yet one is to be paid and the other not. 



An example of how the policy works: a grower of papaya that had 100% 

 dead trees on 20 acres that could have been harvested in 1993, 94 and 

 95 would receive payment for what fruit was on the tree when the 

 disaster occurred that would have been harvested in 1993. Farmers 

 expect this payment to amount to $3000 or 1% of value of what the crop 

 would have produced in 1993 alone. This amount comes to 5% of what it 

 cost to bring the 20 acres into production. If production for dead 

 trees was paid for the farmer would receive approximately $25,000 with 

 a factored payment of 50%. 



In addition, the papaya farmer that was able to plant a new crop in 

 November or December of 1992 will have whatever production he is able 

 to harvest in 1993 deducted from the yield that was to have been 

 harvested from the trees destroyed in the hurricane. The farmer is 

 being penalized for farming. In retrospect the best course of the 

 farmer would have been to prune his trees so they were still alive and 

 not plant any crop until the end of 1993. This course would have made 

 him eligible for full payments for his papaya. 



A grower of lychee trees that spent approximately $10,000 per acre 

 bringing his trees to production over 5 years sustained 60% tree 

 death. He will receive no payments for lost production. 



For some orchard crops such as papaya, limes and lychee that had close 

 to 100% tree death it means that there will be no Crop Disaster 

 Assistance payment whatsoever. This decision to not pay for dead trees 

 flies in the face of the law that Senator Inouye authored and the 

 farmers of Kauai requested. 



Bananas produced no crops from the day of the hurricane until one year 

 after the hurricane then produced some fruit from September 1993 until 

 December 1993. The farmer was given no assistance for the crop he 

 would have harvested from September 1992 until the end of 1992 because 

 he had already harvested for the other 8 months of the year and that 

 production counted against him. In 1993 the production from the field 

 that occurs from September to the end of January counts against his 

 lost production so his 4 months of production from September 1992 to 

 January 1992 is never given assistance and his 1993 production is 

 counted against his disaster payments. This means a grower will be 

 paid for 6 months of losses even though he sustained one year of crop 

 loss. This is the problem with a strict calendar year for all crops. 



TAP (Tree Assistance Program) was a good program for some growers and 



