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who make investments in their operations (such as implementing 

 irrigation systems to combat droughts) in often successful 

 efforts to minimize crop losses. Federal crop insurance premiums 

 could reflect such investments and management practices. 



Crop insurance would strengthen the financial position of the 

 insured in dealing with freezes, droughts, and other reasonably 

 anticipated and periodic weather swings and patterns. Crop 

 insurance can act as collateral on loans, and lowers the risk 

 factor enabling lenders to offer better terms or larger loans. 



Universally broadening the federal crop insurance system to all 

 agricultural crops, and making such more economical, would 

 present potential budgetary savings. It would mitigate the need 

 for Congress to continuously find itself year-in and year-out in 

 a position of having to appropriate huge sums of federal dollars 

 to USDA disaster assistance programs, which have often been 

 outright grants to marginal agricultural producers. 



AAN strongly urges Congress to explore the concept of universally 

 broadening the availability of federal crop insurance to all 

 agricultural producers for all crops, and making the premiums 

 more economical. AAN recommends that an overhauled federal crop 

 insurance system should cover reasonably anticipated weather 

 swings and patterns (such as freezes and droughts) which damage 

 or destroy agricultural crops. In so doing, USDA disaster 

 assistance programs could then be revamped to help restore 

 farmers' lost income due to catastrophic disasters, such as 

 Hurricane Andrew or the severe Midwest floods, for which crop 

 losses could not be averted no matter what precautions are 

 implemented by farmers. 



GUIDANCE TO USDA IS NECESSARY 



AAN genuinely hopes and urges Congress to pursue an overhaul of 

 the federal crop insurance system. However, until such is 

 enacted, we urge Congress in the interim to provide the necessary 

 guidance to USDA with respect to several provisions of the 

 disaster assistance programs which work against the eligibility 

 of nursery crops. 



The Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1980 was designed to make crop 

 insurance the primary form of disaster protection for farmers. 

 The nursery industry had generally been ineligible for USDA 

 disaster assistance until enactment of the Food, Agriculture, 

 Conservation and Trade Act of 1990. The Act requires that 

 disaster assistance be made available to producers of nonprogram 

 crops, and, for the first time, defined nursery crops as 

 nonprogram crops. 



