NewsChannel 5.com - Nashville, Tennessee - Lawmakers Meet With Nursery Industry Representatives

Lawmakers Meet With Nursery Industry Representatives

MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. - A late spring freeze and summer drought hammered Middle Tennessee and harmed several industries including nurseries.

On Monday, two chief lawmakers on the House Committee on Agriculture spoke with representatives from the region's nursery industry.

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis, a committee member, and chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., talked about the drought and other concerns at two meetings.

The first meeting took place at Tennessee State University's Otis Floyd Nursery Research Center in McMinnville and the second occurred at Pleasant Cove Nursery in Rock Island.

The nursery business is a more than $200 million industry in McMinnville.

Davis and Peterson wanted to find out how to help the nursery capital of the world.

"You're gonna have, from what I can tell, a bunch of people who will not be in business if we don't get them some help," Peterson said.

Farmers such as John Collier are hurting. His family has owned a nursery since the 1950s.

"Never laid anybody off," Collier said. "But after the freeze this spring, I had to let some people go and it really hurt - guys who have worked for me since they were kids."

But Davis said with little federal help available right now, the state's insurance industry should step up.

Davis said it appears that insurance adjusters are not fairly analyzing nursery industry's losses.

Still the effort was worthwhile at least to Collier.

"I heard more good points helping us today than I heard at other meetings I've been to," Collier said.