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

DATE: SUNDAY, March 12, 1995                   TAG: 9503130070
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

INSURANCE ON CROPS UNPOPULAR

A new federal law requires farmers to register for crop insurance if they want to benefit from price support programs and disaster relief.

But only 9,900 Virginia farmers have arranged for insurance out of an estimated 20,000 who are supposed to buy it, Donald Davis, acting state director for the federal Consolidated Farm Service Agency, said Friday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is encouraging farmers to buy insurance because it wants to end disaster relief programs such as the drought relief scores of Virginia farmers received in 1993.

USDA says farmers are required to buy insurance for all designated crops to be eligible for price supports and other government programs.

In Virginia, those crops are barley, corn, cotton, oats, peanuts, sorghum, soybeans, tobacco and wheat.

In Northern Virginia, apples also are included. On the Eastern Shore, tomatoes and potatoes are included, Davis said.

USDA says the insurance is not expensive. The minimum policy available through the agency costs $50 per crop for each county in which a farmer has crops, with a total of $200 per county.

In return, the policy pays 60 percent of the market price on half of a farmer's production.

Farmers can buy policies that cover more than that from insurance agents.

``It's important that producers realize they stand to lose a lot if they decide not to participate in the crop insurance program,'' said J. Carlton Courter III, Virginia commissioner of agriculture and consumer services.