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FmHA, however when he went in for the closing he was told that the deal had fallen through 

 because Tropical Fish Farmers had been removed from the eligibility list by the U.S. DA. 

 One producer of tropical fish and aquatic plants met with Diane Sharp and Karen Eskilin of ASCS 

 as well as Witt Chase and Ann Harding from Senator Graham's office and a representative for 

 Senator Connie Mack's office, 2 months after the storm, ASCS took pictures of his farm, which 

 was right in the middle of the disaster zone and so took a direct hit. Although the ASCS 

 representatives witnessed the devestation to his farm first hand, without the proper guidelines they 

 were unable to provide him with funds for his losses, even after he supplied them with 3 years of 

 income tax returns to substantiate his figures for the 9 employees it took to run his farm, an 

 example of how drawn out and confusing the program is, the farmer applied for assistance on 

 September 2, and has only gotten one half of his clean up money to date. ASCS questioned his 

 claim because they felt his claim was too high, based on the size of his farm 

 Another fish farmer, to date has received only 1/2 of the clean up funds he was awarded This is in 

 spite of the fact that he has supplied every piece of documentation requested. To make matters 

 worse, his file is constantly being lost. 



Yet another fish farmer, a widow who is trying to keep her farm afloat, has not received one cent of 

 the money she has applied for, and it has been over 15 months since Hurricane Andrew, to keep her 

 farm going she has had to use money she had set aside as well money that she received for losses to 

 her personal property, along with loans from family and friends. She is quick to point out that all 

 the people she has dealt with at ASCS have been polite and have assured her that she will get the 

 money. 



One farmer who specializes in rare fish, which are raised here in South Dade County and then 

 shipped to Germany for European distribution, argues that the 60-40 rule for crop loss should not 

 be based on sales for the calendar year. Many of the fish are two years old when sold The sales 

 figure for 1992 consisted mostly offish from the prior year's production The crop loss will 

 continue into the 1995 growing season. This is the case for most of the grower's in South Dade. 

 Another source of aggravation was the confusion that resulted from the documentation required to 

 process the grants. One farmer was told one thing by one ASCS representative and another farmer 

 another thing by another ASCS representative. A substantial amount of time was required to fulfill 

 the requirements. Please take note of the fact that after the Hurricane rental property was almost 

 non-existent, so there were few employees and all the clean up work as well as the day to day work 

 had to be done by the farmers and their families. 



One very large problem the aquaculture producers are facing is, our inability to qualify' for the 

 Tree Assistance Program or TAP. TAP provides ornamental nursery producers with funds to 

 restore their brood stock plants Ornamental aquaculture brood stock is used in the same manner, 

 to produce inventories for sale. The inability of the aquaculture producers to enter into this 

 program has left damaged tropical fish farms financially unable to replace brood stock. Since it 



