Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, December 8, 1994                   TAG: 9412080052
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREGG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FARMERS DIVIDED OVER OFFICE CLOSINGS

On Tuesday, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy announced the closing of 1,274 USDA field offices nationwide, including 152 already closed since Espy took office. Of the closings, 1,070 county offices will transfer their functions to new USDA field service centers.

The closings and a USDA headquarters restructuring will save taxpayers $3.6 billion over five years, cut the department's staff by 11,000 and eliminate 14 federal agencies, Espy said.

In Virginia, 57 of 111 field offices will close and others will move. Those closing in Western Virginia include offices in Alleghany, Bland, Craig, Floyd, Giles, Grayson, Henry, Highland, Pulaski and Roanoke counties. The affected offices are those of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, Federal Crop Insurance Corp., Soil Conservation Service, Farmers Home Administration and Rural Development Administration.

Michael Beahm, a beef and sheep producer in Botetourt County, said he doesn't think the closings will hurt area farmers because they don't participate in that many federal commodity programs. Most participation has been in soil and water conservation programs but those have been poorly funded in recent years, Beahm said.

"The ones I feel for are the [field office] employees," he said. "They're the ones that are going to take the brunt of it here, not the farmers."

William Freeman, an orchardist and beef cattle producer in Giles County, said he expects farmers will quit using the USDA's services because the offices will be too inconvenient. The plan calls for Giles County to be served through a service center in Christiansburg in Montgomery County. "What we don't need is to cut off information to the people," he said.

Winton Shelor, a Roanoke County beef producer and alternate on the ASCS county farmers' committee, said soil conservation and other environmental protection efforts will suffer because farmers no longer will have to comply with federal conservation rules in order to ensure their benefits.

A 1991 study by the congressional General Accounting Office of the USDA's field-office operation said the department was spending $2.20 on operation of the ASCS office in Giles County for each $1 in benefits it was providing to farmers there, making the office the second least efficient in the state. The nationwide study, one of 10 from 1973 to 1991, said reorganization of the USDA field structure could save millions of dollars.

Donald Davis, state executive director of the USDA's new Farm Service Agency, said he doesn't anticipate any layoffs with the office closings.

Under the reorganization plan, USDA service centers will be in Christiansburg, Bedford, Rocky Mount and Daleville.

Farmers in Pulaski, Floyd and Giles will go to the service center in Christiansburg. Roanoke and Craig county farmers will be served by a center at Daleville in Botetourt County.

A service center at Rocky Mount will serve Henry County farmers. Farmers in Alleghany and Highland counties will travel to Warm Springs in Bath County.