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

DATE: FRIDAY, January 20, 1995                   TAG: 9501200080
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AID SET FOR TREE GROWERS

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has agreed to pay Southwest Virginia Christmas-tree growers for heavy losses sustained in an unseasonable freeze last May, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said Thursday.

Boucher had requested aid from the department's Tree Assistance Program, which provides disaster relief payments to tree growers with small or medium tree stands. The money goes toward replanting commercial trees and seedlings destroyed by natural disasters.

``Last fall, the federal government made low-interest loans available,'' Boucher said. ``Now, growers can receive direct federal payments when trees or seedlings were killed as a result of the freeze.''

Damages in Grayson exceeded $11 million, and amounted to about $1 million each in Smyth and Washington counties. Boucher said more than 130 farmers were affected.

To be eligible for disaster payments, a small-to-medium commercial Christmas-tree farmer must own less than 1,000 acres of trees and have experienced crop losses of more than 35 percent in 1994. There is a limit of $25,000 per farmer. Fact sheets with additional information are available from Boucher's Abingdon office, (703) 628-1145.

by CNB