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other than a small lease payment that pays taxes and leaves little left 

 over. There have also been outright sales of land at deeply discounted 

 prices. Also, ornamental nurseries have taken advantage of this 

 development to expand their production acres. This may prove to be a 

 negative development as oversupply and low prices are already impacting 

 the nursery industry. This is but one example of the ramifications of 

 the loss of one segment of agribusiness in Homestead, Dade County. 



Finally, Dade County ASCS County Committee projects that out of 

 800 producers of tropical fruit on average 500 producers will be 

 eliminated or reduced in payment due to dead trees. Producers had 

 difficulty comprehending the logic behind the ASCS determination that 

 because their trees were destroyed therefore they had no production 

 therefore they suffered no crop loss. The effect of this decision 

 reduces disaster payment to $3mm on a 3 year crop loss of approximately 

 $150mm. 



On a personal note, as a grower of 20 acres of tropical fruits, I 

 find myself having to replace over 50% of my trees, that were destroyed 

 in the disaster. Only receiving TAP payments for those trees will not 

 provide me with sufficient capital to rebuild my groves. TAP money 

 will not provide the capital required to grow these trees for 3-7 years 

 while awaiting a crop. A crop loss payment would go a long way in 

 re-establishing these groves to pre-Andrew conditions. 



Federal crop insurance would help to mitigate the effects of a 

 disaster of this proportion. One of the problems is that the majority 

 of these tropical fruits are grown in a concentrated area. Therefore, 

 the risk is too great for an underwriter to enter into a policy with 



