Kansas City, Mo. ? A bankruptcy judge has approved an agreement under which eight people laid off in 1999 from the Farmland Industries fertilizer plant in Lawrence will be paid $4,650 each to settle their claims.

The remaining claims from 130 other employees were consolidated into a general unsecured claim totaling $377,800.

Attempts to reach Lawrence union officials on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union will determine the method of distributing the money among the 130 employees. As with other unsecured claims, payments from Farmland will range between 60 cents and 82 cents on the dollar.

In another development at a hearing Tuesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jerry Venters approved the sale of a Farmland grain elevator in Kansas City, Kan. Bartlett Grain Co., of Kansas City, had offered $450,000, but after an auction Monday in competition with Andersons Inc., of Maumee, Ohio, the price it is paying went up to $1.37 million.