Farm Programs: Impact of the 1996 Farm Act on County Office Workload
(Letter Report, 08/19/97, GAO/RCED-97-214).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the impact of the
Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 on the Farm
Service Agency's county office workload.

GAO noted that: (1) because of the limited availability of the Farm
Service Agency's fiscal year (FY) 1997 actual workload data and changes
in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's program and organizational
structure resulting from the Federal Crop Insurance Reform and
Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994, it is not possible
to determine the impact of the 1996 act on the workload of the Farm
Service Agency's county offices; (2) the agency's workload system
reflects workload data at the end of the fiscal year in which the work
was performed; (3) however, because only 6 months of data were available
for FY 1997 at the time of GAO's review, GAO could not measure the
impact of the 1996 act on county office workload; (4) furthermore, the
1994 act generated a number of changes affecting the agency's staffing
and responsibilities; (5) because these changes were being implemented
at the same time as the changes directed by the 1996 act, it is not
possible to isolate the impact of either set of changes on the resulting
workload; (6) the 1994 changes include the addition of responsibilities
for agricultural credit and crop insurance programs and changes to the
Department's county office structure; (7) at the 16 county offices GAO
visited, county executive directors believed that the overall workload
per employee has increased since the passage of the 1994 act; (8) they
stated, however, that a number of factors have affected staffing and
workload during this period and that the role of the 1996 act on the
perceived workload increases is indeterminable; (9) because of the
absence of a full year of 1997 data and additional issues identified at
the county office level, GAO cannot confirm the county executive
directors' observations or isolate the impact of the 1996 act on any
workload changes that may have occurred in these offices; (10) while the
results of GAO's work concerning the impact of the 1996 act on workload
levels are inconclusive, available information generally confirms the
observations of the agency's budget officials that each county office
requires about 2 staff years to handle the basic administrative
functions associated with keeping the office open and functioning during
the day; and (11) accordingly, unless additional offices are closed, any
future staff reductions will probably be concentrated in the larger
offices, which, unlike smaller offices, allocate a higher proportion of
their total costs for service to farmers than to overhead.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  RCED-97-214
     TITLE:  Farm Programs: Impact of the 1996 Farm Act on County Office 
             Workload
      DATE:  08/19/97
   SUBJECT:  Federal downsizing
             Agricultural programs
             Federal agency reorganization
             Administrative costs
             Farm credit
             Data collection
             Human resources utilization
             Reductions in force
IDENTIFIER:  USDA Conservation Reserve Program
             Federal Crop Insurance Program
             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Report to Congressional Requesters

August 1997

FARM PROGRAMS - IMPACT OF THE 1996
FARM ACT ON COUNTY OFFICE WORKLOAD

GAO/RCED-97-214

County Office Workload

(150072)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  USDA - U.S.  Department of Agriculture
  FSA - Farm Service Agency
  ASCS - Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service
  FmHA - Farmers Home Administration

Letter
=============================================================== LETTER


B-277486

August 19, 1997

The Honorable Gil Gutknecht
The Honorable Kenny Hulshof
House of Representatives

U.S.  farm programs have historically been implemented by the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture (USDA) through offices located in the
nation's agricultural counties.  Two recent acts have significantly
affected the nature of operations in these county offices.  The
Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture
Reorganization Act of 1994 (P.L.  103-354, Oct.  13, 1994) directed
the Secretary of Agriculture to streamline departmental operations by
consolidating county offices and merging agricultural credit with
other farm program activities.  In 1996, the Federal Agriculture
Improvement and Reform Act (P.L.  104-127, Apr.  4, 1996)
fundamentally changed the federal government's role in supporting
agriculture and offered the opportunity to reduce county office
workload. 

Under the 1996 act, annual calculations of acreage devoted to
agriculture and associated payments to farmers were discontinued and
replaced by 7-year production flexibility contracts that provide
annual payments to farmers through 2002.  USDA and the Office of
Management and Budget projected that workload and staffing in the
county offices, operated since 1994 by USDA's Farm Service Agency
(FSA), would decline because of these changes.  As a result, the
Office of Management and Budget has proposed reducing FSA's county
office staff, formerly part of USDA's Agricultural Stabilization and
Conservation Service (ASCS), by more than 50 percent, from 11,729
employees in 1997 to 4,879 by 2002. 

Concerned that the workload in county offices did not decrease as a
result of the 1996 act and that the proposed future reductions in
county office staffing would adversely affect FSA's delivery of
federal agriculture programs, you asked us to review the impact of
the 1996 act on county office workload. 


   RESULTS IN BRIEF
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1

Because of the limited availability of the Farm Service Agency's
fiscal year 1997 actual workload data and changes in the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture's program and organizational structure
resulting from the 1994 act, it is not possible to determine the
impact of the 1996 act on the workload of the Farm Service Agency's
county offices.  The agency's workload system reflects workload data
at the end of the fiscal year in which the work was performed. 
However, because only 6 months of data were available for fiscal year
1997 at the time of our review, we could not measure the impact of
the 1996 act on county office workload.  Furthermore, the 1994 act
generated a number of changes affecting the agency's staffing and
responsibilities.  Because these changes were being implemented at
the same time as the changes directed by the 1996 act, it is not
possible to isolate the impact of either set of changes on the
resulting workload.  The 1994 changes include the addition of
responsibilities for agricultural credit and crop insurance programs
and changes to the Department's county office structure. 

At the 16 county offices we visited, county executive directors
believed that the overall workload per employee has increased since
the passage of the 1994 act.  They stated, however, that a number of
factors have affected staffing and workload during this period and
that the role of the 1996 act on the perceived workload increases is
indeterminable.  Because of the absence of a full year of 1997 data
and additional issues identified at the county office level, we
cannot confirm the county executive directors' observations or
isolate the impact of the 1996 act on any workload changes that may
have occurred in these offices. 

While the results of our work concerning the impact of the 1996 act
on workload levels are inconclusive, available information generally
confirms the observations of the agency's budget officials that each
county office requires about 2 staff years to handle the basic
administrative functions associated with keeping the office open and
functioning during the day.  In this connection, about 350 of the
existing 2,440 county offices have three or fewer employees.  It will
be extremely difficult for these small offices to experience further
staff reductions and still remain viable operations.  Accordingly,
unless additional county offices are closed, any future staff
reductions will probably be concentrated in the larger offices,
which, unlike smaller offices, allocate a higher proportion of their
total costs for service to farmers than to overhead. 


   BACKGROUND
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2

USDA has delivered farm programs through county offices since 1933. 
At that time, to serve more than 6 million farmers, ASCS had a county
office in nearly all of the 3,100 agricultural counties in the United
States.  These county offices were managed by a county executive
director hired by a committee of locally elected farmers.  The
director supervised employees who administered commodity programs for
crops such as wheat, feed grains, cotton, rice, tobacco, and peanuts;
conservation programs, such as the Conservation Reserve Program; and
emergency assistance. 

As the number of farms in the United States has declined to the
current level of about 1.9 million and transportation and
communications have improved, USDA and the Congress have at various
times attempted to reduce the number of county offices or reduce
county office staffing.  The 1994 act was the latest such effort. 
Under the 1994 act, FSA was created by merging the staffs of the
former ASCS and part of the former Farmers Home Administration.  Many
of the newly formed FSA offices continue to be managed by a county
executive director hired by a committee of locally elected farmers. 
The former ASCS' staff was reduced from 13,432 in 1995 to 11,729 in
1997, while about 2,200 former Farmers Home Administration employees
were assigned to FSA's county offices to help administer agricultural
credit programs. 

The 1996 act significantly changed USDA's administrative requirements
for the commodity programs.  From the 1930s through 1996, USDA
provided annual payments--more recently called deficiency
payments--to participating farmers under federal commodity programs. 
These payments were based on annual calculations involving historical
acreage devoted to agricultural production, market prices for crops,
and support prices set by the Congress and the Secretary of
Agriculture.  Participation in the commodity programs was limited to
farmers who agreed annually to limit production in order to receive
deficiency payments.  This annual requirement no longer exists. 

Under the new program, any one whose farm had a recorded planting
history for wheat, feed grains, cotton, and rice in any single year
from 1991 to 1995 could sign a production flexibility contract. 
Those who signed these contracts in 1996 are generally eligible to
receive annual payments through 2002, regardless of the crop planted. 
Although signing up for the program was to be a one-time event,
changes in farming operations may require participants to modify
their contracts.  For example, USDA's annual payments to farms that
are leased are normally shared between the farmer and the landowner. 
Because many leases are for only 1 year, these contracts will need to
be revised annually to reflect current lease agreements.  In
addition, land comes out of the Conservation Reserve Program
annually, and this land can be signed up in the new program. 

In carrying out their program management responsibilities, county
office staff perform a variety of tasks, including informing farmers
of available programs and their requirements; signing up producers to
participate in the programs; and maintaining basic information on
program participants in their county, including the names and
addresses of producers, the tracts they farm, the programs they
participate in, and the payments they receive.  While the 1996 act
has reduced the need for some basic crop information, other
information is still needed to ensure compliance with the
requirements of related farm programs and to make certain that annual
payment limitations to any single individual are not exceeded. 

For a number of years, FSA has used its work measurement and workload
systems to capture the work performed in county offices and provide a
basis for projecting county offices' annual needs for staffing and
administrative funding.  To make these projections, FSA selects about
6 percent of its county offices (currently 157 of 2,440 offices) to
represent county offices nationwide.  FSA attempts to include in its
6-percent sample offices representing different farming practices and
commodities, as well as offices of different sizes.  At these
offices, FSA records the amount of time staff spend on each of the
over 150 different work activities that define FSA's workload.  FSA
applies these statistical data from the 157 work measurement offices
to the workload units reported by all county offices in order to
project staffing needs for each of the 2,440 county offices
nationwide.  In recent years, because of directed staff reductions,
the system also has been used as a tool to help distribute staff
cuts.  The calculated workload for each county office includes fixed
costs, such as general administration, training, and computer
maintenance operations. 

USDA's budget submission for fiscal year 1998 proposes a reduction of
1,850 former ASCS employees from 1997 levels.  This proposed
reduction is made up of two components.  First, FSA concluded that
850 fewer employees were needed to handle its projected workload. 
Second, USDA agreed to reduce FSA's staffing by an additional 1,000
employees to meet the budget reduction targets set forth in the
President's 1998 budget proposal.  Beyond 1998, the Office of
Management and Budget has proposed cutting former ASCS employees, now
at FSA, by an additional 5,000, down to 4,879 employees by fiscal
year 2002. 


   AVAILABLE DATA AND CHANGES
   RESULTING FROM THE 1994 ACT
   MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO PROVIDE A
   CLEAR PICTURE OF CHANGES IN
   WORKLOAD
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3

Two factors--a limited amount of available data following the
implementation of the 1996 act and other changes triggered by the
1994 act--make it difficult to isolate and assess the effects of the
1996 act on workload levels in county offices. 


      AVAILABLE DATA DO NOT
      PROVIDE SUFFICIENT
      INFORMATION TO ASSESS THE
      IMPACT OF THE 1996 ACT
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :3.1

FSA's work measurement and workload systems provide the agency with a
management tool for determining workload distribution and resource
staffing needs.  Workload data are captured at the end of the fiscal
year.  Our efforts to measure the impact of the 1996 act were
hamstrung by the lack of availability of a full year's workload data
following the act's implementation.  To measure this impact, we would
need to compare the data for a full year prior to and following the
act's implementation.  Partial year comparisons are not useful
because farm program activities are not always implemented at the
same time each year.  As of June 1997, only 6 months of data were
available on FSA's workload following the implementation of the 1996
act. 


      CHANGES OTHER THAN THE 1996
      ACT AFFECT FSA'S WORKLOAD
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :3.2

A number of factors triggered by the 1994 act have also affected
workload levels in county offices, making it difficult to isolate the
impact of the 1996 act.  These changes include the addition of
responsibilities for agricultural credit and crop insurance programs
and changes to USDA's county office structure.  As a result, county
office staff have assumed new responsibilities and undergone
organizational and staffing changes at the same time that the 1996
act was reducing responsibilities for traditional commodity programs. 
Determining the effect of the changes resulting from the 1996 act in
this context is not possible. 

One of the major changes brought about by the 1994 act was the
transfer of agricultural credit responsibilities to FSA's county
offices.  Even though about 2,200 former Farmers Home Administration
employees were added to the county offices to help administer these
responsibilities, many FSA employees previously responsible for
administering commodity programs are now also administering portions
of the agricultural credit programs.  These additional
responsibilities cloud comparisons of workload before and after the
1996 act. 

The 1994 act also assigned FSA the responsibility for a new
catastrophic crop insurance program.\1 The Congress directed all FSA
offices to make catastrophic insurance available to all farmers. 
Farmers were required to obtain this insurance--either from FSA or a
private insurer--if they wanted to participate in USDA's commodity
programs.  Approximately 450,000 farmers purchased catastrophic crop
insurance from FSA's county offices in fiscal years 1995 and in 1996. 
FSA did not receive any additional staff to carry out these
responsibilities.  Once again, the evolving nature of
responsibilities in FSA's county offices complicates any comparison
of workload over this time period. 

Finally, the reorganization mandated under the 1994 act required the
Secretary of Agriculture to streamline the Department's operations. 
Within FSA, this effort has been accomplished in fiscal years 1995
through 1997 by reducing staffing in those county offices with the
largest number of employees as well as by closing about 150 county
offices and transferring the responsibilities of these offices to
other county offices.  These changes make it difficult to determine
the impact of the 1996 act on county office workload. 


--------------------
\1 The 1996 act subsequently directed the Secretary of Agriculture to
phase out this responsibility for the federal government as the
private sector demonstrated sufficient capacity for delivering this
line of crop insurance. 


   COUNTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS
   BELIEVE WORKLOAD PER EMPLOYEE
   HAS INCREASED SINCE 1994
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4

Lacking a clear picture of workload changes from the existing
national workload measurement system, we visited 16 county offices to
get a first-hand impression of workload levels and any recent changes
in these levels.  (App.  I provides descriptive information on these
county offices.) The 16 county executive directors told us that while
some aspects of their offices' work have decreased since the passage
of the 1996 act, their offices have also taken on new
responsibilities.  These additions, coupled with reductions in the
staff formerly dedicated to administering commodity-related programs,
have resulted in increasing the per person volume of work for the
remaining staff. 

County executive directors acknowledged that the time spent on
specific activities for the commodity programs--both enrolling
farmers in the programs and ensuring compliance with the program's
requirements--has decreased since the passage of the 1996 act.  This
decrease has occurred because the new production flexibility
contracts require less information from farmers and less oversight by
county office staff than did the commodity programs.  However, the
directors believed that this decrease was largely offset by increases
in the number of contracts needed to be completed because of the
increased level of participation in the program. 

County executive directors offered a number of observations to
support their view that workload per person has increased overall. 
First, they pointed out that the initial enrollment for production
flexibility contracts in 1996 doubled the number of participants from
those previously participating in the commodity programs from 3
million to 6 million.  The enrollments were a one-time event that
will not be repeated, except for land leaving the Conservation
Reserve Program.  However, a certain proportion of farmers will have
to amend their contracts periodically.  Amendments are necessary when
changes are made to (1) farm ownership, (2) leasing relationships, or
(3) payment provisions.  The volume of work associated with these
changes in 1997 and beyond will be less than the work associated with
the initial enrollments.  However, because only 6 months of data for
fiscal year 1997 are available, we do not have a basis for assessing
the full impact on the workload for 1997 and beyond. 

Second, the directors stated that the increased level of
participation has resulted in a higher volume of work associated with
ancillary recordkeeping activities, such as recording changes in farm
ownership.  As with the volume of work associated with amending the
contracts, we cannot determine the amount of work that will be
required for these ancillary activities in 1997 and beyond. 

Third, in addition to the changes brought about by the production
flexibility contracts, other programs--conservation, crop insurance,
and agricultural credit--have also contributed to changes in county
office workload since 1994, according to the 16 county executive
directors.  For example, in the seven county offices that did not
receive additional staff to administer agricultural credit programs,
existing staff had to assume some responsibility for these programs
in addition to their other duties.  These responsibilities include
accepting applications for direct farm loans and servicing these
loans. 

Fourth, directors at two county offices pointed out that their county
was assigned workload responsibilities from other county offices that
were closed as a result of the 1994 act. 

Concurrent with changes in the work activities, county executive
directors told us that they experienced decreases in the number of
staff available and trained to process commodity-related program
requirements.  In this connection, staff formerly dedicated to
administering the commodity-related programs were reduced in 10 of
the 16 county offices we visited by a total of 19 staff years--from
78 to 59.  Overall, however, the total staffing at the 16 offices we
visited increased from 105 in fiscal year 1995 to 115 in fiscal year
1997.  This increase resulted from the addition of 29 former Farmers
Home Administration employees, who are primarily responsible for
administering agricultural credit activities. 

Because of the absence of a full year of 1997 data and additional
issues identified at the county office level, we cannot confirm the
county executive directors' observations or isolate the impact of the
1996 act on any workload changes that may have occurred in these
offices. 


   FIXED ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS IN
   FSA'S COUNTY OFFICE STRUCTURE
   WILL SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECT ANY
   FUTURE REDUCTIONS IN COUNTY
   OFFICE STAFFING
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :5

Regardless of its size, each of FSA's 2,440 county offices requires a
certain fixed amount of time and resources to carry out basic office
functions and train staff to administer FSA's programs.  FSA budget
officials estimated that 1.3 staff years per office are needed to
carry out the basic administrative duties for keeping the office
open.  These duties include activities such as obtaining and managing
office space, paying utilities, and processing paperwork related to
payroll.  Additional time is needed to train staff on the specific
characteristics of program operations so that they can effectively
serve participating farmers.  In total, these fixed costs may
represent almost 40 percent of county offices' total workload.  Our
analysis of USDA's workload data produced a similar outcome.  The
data indicated that about 2 staff years of effort per office is being
devoted to the activities associated with keeping the office open and
functioning. 

USDA's previous reductions in county office staffing have been
achieved primarily by reducing staff at county offices with more than
three employees and by closing or consolidating smaller county
offices.  For example, since 1994, FSA has closed 150 offices, most
with three or fewer staff.  FSA also reduced staff in about 1,400
other county offices.  FSA has about 350 county offices with three or
fewer staff.  USDA has not indicated whether it would achieve future
staff reductions by closing county offices and/or reducing the number
of staff in the remaining offices. 

Because county offices need a minimum of two staff in order to remain
in operation, FSA will find it extremely difficult to reduce staff
further in its smaller offices.  Accordingly, unless additional
offices are closed, any future staff reductions will probably have to
be concentrated in the larger county offices.  Because a lower
percentage of staff time in these larger offices is devoted to
performing basic administrative functions, a greater proportion is
available to provide service to farmers.  Concentrating additional
staff cuts in these offices therefore runs the risk of diminishing
the quality of service to the large number of farmers served by these
offices. 

USDA is attempting to reduce the impact of future staff reductions on
its delivery of services to farmers by changing its organizational
structure and by considering the use of different methods for
delivering program services.  In this connection, the Department has
directed its county-based agencies\2 to examine their office
structure at every level--headquarters, regional, state, and
county--and develop recommendations for improvements in efficiency. 
USDA has not established a target date for completing this review. 


--------------------
\2 In addition to FSA, these agencies include the Natural Resources
Conservation Service and the Rural Development Agency. 


   AGENCY COMMENTS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :6

We provided copies of a draft of this report to the Department's Farm
Service Agency for its review and comment.  We met with agency
officials, including the Associate Administrator.  FSA generally
concurred with the results of our review, except for the draft
report's discussion of the capabilities of the agency's work
measurement and workload systems.  On the basis of their comments, we
revised this discussion to better highlight the key difficulty
specifically associated with using data in FSA's systems to examine
the change in workload following the implementation of the 1996 act. 
This difficulty was the unavailability of a complete year of data
following the act.  We also made a number of technical clarifications
throughout the report. 


   SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :7

To examine the changes in workload before and after the
implementation of the 1996 act, we reviewed USDA's national data on
workload and budget for fiscal year 1995 through March 31, 1997.  We
met with USDA headquarters, state, and county officials to obtain
their views on the impact of the 1996 act on county office workload. 
We also examined the legislative history of the 1994 and 1996 acts. 

To determine workload changes at the county office level, we visited
16 county offices.  These offices were chosen because they had been
among the 53 county offices used to measure workload since 1995 and
were located in areas that had different crop and farm activities. 
The offices we visited were located in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona,
California, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Tennessee, and
Wisconsin.  In these county offices, we met with the county executive
director and discussed the changes in staffing and workload since
1995, including the details supporting reported workload information. 
Furthermore, in five other county offices in Georgia, Missouri,
Texas, and Virginia, and in state offices in Alabama, Arkansas,
Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, and
Virginia, we obtained additional views on the impact of the 1996 act
on county office workload. 

Because the offices we visited were not selected to constitute a
statistically representative sample, we cannot generalize our
findings at these county offices to other FSA county offices. 
Furthermore, we did not analyze the efficiency of county office
operations to determine if staffing levels were appropriate. 
Finally, we did not analyze the quality of services provided before
and after the 1996 act. 

We conducted our work from February 1997 through August 1997 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 


---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.1

We are sending copies of this report to the Chairmen, Senate
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and House Committee
on Agriculture; other interested congressional committees; the
Secretary of Agriculture; and the Director, the Office of Management
and Budget.  We will also make copies available to others on request. 

Please call me at (202) 512-5138 if you or your staff have any
questions about this report.  Major contributors to this report are
listed in appendix II. 

Robert A.  Robinson
Director, Food and
 Agriculture Issues


PROFILE OF THE 16 COUNTY OFFICES
VISITED
=========================================================== Appendix I

This appendix provides information on the county offices we visited
to determine workload changes at the county office level.  Figure I.1
shows the location of these offices as well as the other county and
state offices we visited.  Table I.1 shows the number of employees in
each office in 1995 and 1997, including employees with the former
Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) and former
Farmers Home Administration (FmHA); the types of farm activities
carried out in the county; and the number of farms associated with
these offices according to the 1992 Census. 

   Figure I.1:  Location of County
   Offices Visited

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)



                                        Table I.1
                         
                           Information on the 16 County Offices
                                         Visited

                   Number of permanent employees
                 ----------------------------------
                    1995              1997
                 ----------  ----------------------
                                                     Responsibl                 Number of
                                                     e for                          farms
                     Former      Former      Former  additional  Principal          (1992
County office        ASCS\a      ASCS\a      FmHA\b  County      commodities    Census)\c
---------------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ------------  ----------
Baldwin,                  4           4           0  Shared      Soybeans,            941
Alabama                                              management  corn,
                                                                 livestock

Graham, Arizona           4           4           0  Yes         Livestock,           424
                                                                 cotton

Lonoke,                   8           7           4  No          Rice, wheat          836
Arkansas

Riverside,                5           5           3  Yes         Fruits and        10,076
California                                                       vegetables,
                                                                 wheat,
                                                                 cotton

Dodge, Georgia            5           5           0  No          Peanuts,             394
                                                                 corn,
                                                                 livestock

Henry, Indiana            6           4           4  No          Corn,                848
                                                                 soybeans

Guthrie, Iowa             8           6           4  No          Corn,                946
                                                                 soybeans,
                                                                 livestock

Washington,               9           8           3  No          Wheat, feed          852
Kansas                                                           grains,
                                                                 livestock

Bourbon,                  4           4           0  Yes         Tobacco,           1,683
Kentucky                                                         corn

Morehouse,                7           5           3  No          Cotton,              413
Louisiana                                                        soybeans

Kalamazoo,                6           4           0  No          Corn, wheat          745
Michigan

Crow Wing,                4           3           0  Yes         Livestock,         1,104
Minnesota                                                        dairy

Callaway,                 5           5           2  No          Feed grains,       1,300
Missouri                                                         livestock

Barnes, North            11           8           2  No          Wheat,               839
Dakota                                                           sunflower

Dyer, Tennessee          10           7           0  No          Livestock,           510
                                                                 soybeans

Trempealeau,              9           7           4  No          Dairy, corn        1,424
Wisconsin

=========================================================================================
Total                   105          86          29  4 of 15,
                                                     1 shared
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. 

\b Farmers Home Administration. 

\c For those county offices that administer programs to another
county, this column includes the number of farms from both counties. 


MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================== Appendix II

Ronald E.  Maxon, Jr., Assistant Director
Fred Light
Jerry Hall
Paul Pansini
Stuart Ryba
Carol Herrnstadt Shulman
Marge Vallazza


*** End of document. ***