83 



Honorable Charlie Rose 



105 Cannon House Office Building 



Washington, DC. 20515 



We have been requested to testify concerning current administration of disaster 

 assistance programs, programs responsiveness to special needs of specialty crops, 

 specific problems and potential solutions. 



SPECIAL NEEDS: 



1 Comparable treatment to the wheat, com or oats growers. (For example: 

 Wheat growers can be paid 65% of their production loss and also collect crop 

 insurance. If they were prevented from planting they can collect disaster at the 65% 

 rate. ) 



2. To establish the value of the loss that occurred. 



SPECIFIC PROBLEMS: 



1 . Providing three years sales records. 



2. In case of orchard trees, payments for the loss of production for 

 subsequent years. (Dead trees, replaced young trees, or severely pruned trees do not 

 produce normal crops for several years.) 



3. Obtaining information and preventing fraud. 



4. Nursery crops and aquaculture crops do not fit me customary pattern for 

 field crops. (Instead of one crop per year, there may be continuous turnover of 

 inventory) 



SOLUTIONS: 



1. Establish crop insurance for all crops. Consider using dollar value as a 

 basis to reduce the cost of insurance. In specialty crops the amount of crop left 

 may be worth more than the whole crop. Guaranteed yields are more workable 

 when there are large storage stocks because there is usually less price fluctuation. 



2. Crop insurance would provide protection for those with over 2 million of 

 sales. 



3. Crop insurance could minimize the amount of fraud because the agents 

 would have established that the crop existed prior to the disaster. 



4. Crop insurance would be more equitable payment to growers because they 

 would be paid based on the value they had insured. 



5. USDA could better control the costs to the taxpayers. 



