Disaster Assistance Update

							                              Southern Cotton Growers
                                   Action Request
                                       Disaster Assistance Update
                                            January 9, 2003

Yesterday (1-8-03), at the request of the National Cotton Council, Ronnie Fleming, President, Southern
Cotton Growers participated in a “commodity group disaster coalition” meeting in Washington, DC. The
meeting began with a briefing session followed by a press conference. Later in the day, key hill visits
were arranged with select Congressman and Senators. Other commodity groups that participated in this
united effort included American Farm Bureau Federation, National Farmers Union and the National
Wheat Growers Association to name a few. Several actual Congressmen and Senators including
numerous staff representing various offices spoke during the briefing. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT)
seized the opportunity to inform the group that he and Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) will introduce a
disaster bill in the Senate. Several House bills were also introduced yesterday.

Of particular interest is H.R.257 introduced by freshman Congressman, Max Burns, (R-GA). He
introduced the bipartisan bill with eight cosponsors: Hayes (NC), McIntyre (NC), Pickering (MS),
Kingston (GA), Rogers (AL), Goode (VA), Cramer (AL), and Bishop (GA). The Emergency Agriculture
Disaster Assistance Act of 2003 (H.R.257) provides emergency funding to producers on two levels. First,
it utilizes emergency funding (no budget off-sets) to compensate producers for quantity and quality crop
losses that were incurred in the 2002 crop year due to damaging weather. As it contains the formula used
in previous crop disaster programs, farmers basically have to sustain a 35% crop loss before being
compensated by USDA through this program. The bill also has a crop insurance/NAP component:
farmers are ineligible for disaster payments under the bill unless 1) they either purchased crop insurance
in 2002 or 2) if they were uninsured in 2002 or didn’t apply for NAP in 2002, agree to purchase crop
insurance at the “buy-up” level or sign up for NAP (for those unfamiliar with NAP, this is basically a
program for producers of those crops for which no crop insurance policy exists) for the next three years.
For those accepting disaster assistance under these terms but failing to comply, a forfeiture of farm bill
payments will occur.

The second component provides emergency assistance to livestock producers who were qualified to
receive payments under USDA’s Livestock Compensation Program in the fall but for whatever reason
(such as missing a deadline or FSA county office workload) did not do so. OMB has scored the bill at
$2.86 billion. Generally speaking, H.R. 257 mirrors the disaster bills passed since 1998.

Congressman Burns has asked for our assistance in soliciting additional co-sponsors to the bill. Time is
of the essence. This will be our best opportunity to demonstrate strong support for disaster legislation.
Past disaster bills have always received overwhelming bipartisan support. This time around should be no
different. Please refer to the organization’s website for a listing of offices for your state at
www.Southern-Southeastern.org. We are in the process of updating this list in response to changes made
as a result of the November elections.

Please contact the association office should you have any questions or require a listing of your delegation
members (800-773-6603). Spread the word!

David Ruppenicker, Southern Cotton Growers