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National Corn 

 Growers Association 



Washington Ottice 



201 Massachusetts Ave., N.E., Suite C-4 



Washington, D.C. 20002 



202/546-7611 



TESTIMONY OF 



ROBERT GEBHARDS 



NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION 



TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON GENERAL FARM COMMODITIES 



U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



SEPTEMBER 28, 1993 



Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you 

 for the opportunity to present the views of the National 

 Com Growers Association (NCGA) . I am Robert Gebhards, a 

 com and soybean farmer from Rock Port, Missouri. 



NCGA applauds Congress and the Administration for their 

 prompt response to weather-related crop losses. Farmers 

 needed the assurance that disaster assistance would be 

 available to offset financial losses this year. However, 

 the National Corn Growers Association is committed to an 

 improved multi-peril crop insurance program that would 

 eliminate the need for ad hoc disaster assistance in the 

 future. We support changing federal budget procedures to 

 include crop loss disaster assistance as an annual budget 

 outlay, and redirection of the budgeted funds to improve 

 crop insurance. 



1993 has been a year many of us would like to forget. 

 The western Corn Belt still is experiencing flooding and 

 unusually cool weather. Farmers in the Southeast have lost 

 crops to drought. Even where stands of corn have looked 

 good, farmers are discovering that ears are not filled, so 

 yields will not be as good as expected. Now, wet fall 

 weather is making harvest difficult. 



One of the inequities with disaster assistance that has 

 become apparent this year is that, under current rules, a 

 fanner could have a total loss on acres of production, but 

 not qualify for disaster assistance because of production 

 elsewhere within the same farm number. In some instances, 

 local ASCS offices have required farmers to combine 

 operations in a single farm number, even though the producer 

 might have preferred a different arrangement. We support a 

 change in the computation of disaster assistance eligibility 

 to farm tracts rather than by farm numbers. 



