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Dakota Rural Action 



Box 549 • Brookings, South Dakota 57006 • 605-697-5204 



September 22, 1993 



Honorable Tom Daschle 

 U.S. Senate 



317 Hart Office Building 

 Washington, DC 20510 



Honorable Larry Pressler 

 U.S. Senate 



283 Russell Office Building 

 Washington, DC 20005 



Honorable Tim Johnson 

 U.S. House of Representatives 

 2438 Raybum Building 

 Washington, DC 20515 



Dear Senator Tom Daschle, Senator Larry Pressler and Congressman Tiin Johnson, 



Dakota Rural Action believes the hay prtxiuccr is being left out of tlie quality disaster 

 program. Just like the com, soybean and small grain producer, tlie hay producers crop has been 

 affected by this disaster year. DRA urges you to work to include the quality of hay in the other 

 crop quality disaster declarations. 



We understand that there are some questions about how the quality of hay and the disaster 

 payment for this quality should be assessed. As requested by Senator Daschle's office, Dakota 

 Rural Action has come up wiUi the following formula for measuring hay quality lost due to Uic 

 disaster. 



The universal measurement for the quality of hay is Relative Feed Value (RFV), which can 

 be detennined tlirough an inexpensive test. There are numerous labs to get hay tested. In South 

 Dakotii the most well known is South Dakota State University. 



County Extension Agents can determine tlie average quality of hay harvested over tlie past 

 3 to 5 years. This RFV average can tlien be used as measurement for quality lost by hay producers 

 in a specific county. Dakota Rural Action believes each county should come up with their own 

 quality and production averages. 



What follows is the portion of our formula (o figure the county averages. 



We will use Deuel county as an example for this formula. Deuel County's average alfalfa yield set 

 by the ASCS committee is 2.3 tons per acre. We believe that this is too low of a county average, 

 so for our puiposes we arc using 3 tons per acre as the average crop in Deuel County. 



Average yield of the first cutting is 1.5 tons, the average on the second cutting is 1 ton and 

 on tlie third is ,5 tons. 



® /./M<*fra/)A/rf ,>n rftyilrd p^pi' 



