By Philip Brasher

To farmers like David Moore, it's bad enough that supermarkets sell a bag of carrots or bag of potatoes for three to four times what they're paid to grow them. Now farmers say they're having to pay stores just to get carry their produce.

Moore, who grows oranges, vegetables and nuts near Bakersfield, Calif., says supermarkets have charged him as much as $1,000 a week per store to display his packaged almonds.

Growers ''are battling like never before to remain economically viable'' and the proliferation of such fees ''is a very real threat,'' Moore told the Senate Small Business Committee on Thursday.

The fees are charged to suppliers in return for space on supermarket shelves. They were originally charged primarily for dry goods but now extend to products throughout the store, including the produce section.

Supermarket industry officials say the fees are necessary to cover the risk of introducing new products, 90 percent of which fail. But critics say they hurt consumers and prevent small businesses and farmers from getting their products into stores.

''I may have a product that's worth nothing, but if I've got a big checkbook I can get shelf space,'' said Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.

A common fee quoted is $5,000 per item, per store, but it can be as low as $10,000 per item for an entire chain, according to the Senate committee.

But lawmakers say they've been thwarted in finding how widespread the fees are because the grocery industry won't disclose them. The committee assigned the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to find out how much supermarket chains were charging, but the supermarkets refused to cooperate despite a guarantee of confidentiality.

The committee's chairman, Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., said it was ''highly suspicious'' that stores woudn't disclose their fees. Suppliers are reluctant to talk about the fees for fear of being blackballed by the stores, said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Moore, who is president of the Western Growers Association, said stores charge the fees not just for new products, such as packaged salads, but also for standard items, like oranges and potatoes.

One retailer asked a produce shipper to pay $30,000 for a small sign to be placed with the commodity he was selling, Moore said. In another case, a supermarket chain in California asked growers and shippers to pay a ''distribution facility opening fee'' to underwrite the cost of a new warehouse.

Supermarket industry officials say the fees in reality help small businesses. Otherwise, they would lose out to established food industry giants that have ample budgets to advertise and promote their products through coupons and other means, said Susan Mirvis, a spokeswoman for the Food Marketing Institute, the industry trade group.

In the produce section, the fees are levied only on brand-name items, such as bagged salads or carrots, she said.

''Anyone who thinks there aren't enough new products or interesting products or interesting varieties hasn't been in a supermarket lately,'' she said.