Congressmen to hear nursery concerns

The combination of a late freeze and summer drought has hammered the local nursery industry.

Two members of Congress want Warren County nurserymen to know they are here to help if possible.

The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee will be in McMinnville on Monday, along with Congressman Lincoln Davis. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Davis will first meet with nurserymen at the TSU Nursery Research Center, then depart for a tour of Pleasant Cove Nursery located toward Rock Island.

Hearing the concerns of nurserymen will be at the top of their agenda. The stipulations of insurance contracts have made it difficult for a number of area farmers to receive compensation. In some cases, nurserymen suffered significant losses, but the losses weren’t extreme enough to warrant any insurance settlement. Many other farmers don’t have crop insurance at all.

While the freeze was devastating for nurseries specializing in liners, the drought hurt everyone. The lack of rain essentially cost farmers an entire growing season, which is a significant financial loss considering larger plants sell for more than smaller ones.

‘Plants don’t gain any size without appropriate rainfall,’ said Flower City Nursery owner Bill Boyd, a past president of the Southern Nursery Association. ‘And size is money. The profit margin is much more with larger plants.’

The House Agriculture Committee, of which Davis is a member, has jurisdiction over federal agricultural policies and oversight of some federal agencies. It can recommend funding appropriations.