As Congress prepares to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the farm bill, the American Bankers Association joined a broad coalition of financial, agricultural and other trade associations in a letter to congressional leaders urging them to finalize the bill ahead of the current farm bill’s expiration on Sept. 30.

By Bert Ely In the June 2015 Farm Credit Watch, I reported that Frontier Communications Corp. had entered into a $350 million “credit agreement” with CoBank to partially finance Frontier’s $2 billion acquisition of AT&T’s wireline business in Connecticut. Frontier is an investor-owned, Nasdaq-listed telecommunications company with $24.7 billion of assets at March 31, 2018; it is hardly a local ...

By a bipartisan 86-11, the Senate today passed its version the 2018 farm bill.

So far, the 2018 House and Senate Farm Bills now pending in Congress would have a minor impact on the Farm Credit System, which is good news for bankers.

A coalition of more than 600 agricultural banking and insurance organizations -- including ABA -- and other ag industry constituents signed onto a letter to members of the Senate urging them to oppose any harmful amendments in the 2018 Farm Bill that would increase the cost of, reduce or limit participation in, or harm private sector delivery of crop insurance.

By a narrow vote of 213 to 211, the House today passed the 2018 farm bill, a crucial step toward ensuring the well-being of the nation’s farmers and ranchers and the 2,000 farm banks that serve them.

Despite the Farm Credit System’s supposed emphasis on lending to young, beginning and small farmers and ranchers, data in the FCS’s annual information statement for 2017 documents the declining importance of small borrowers to the FCS over the last several years. Although total FCS lending from year-end 2015 to year-end 2017 increased $22.9 billion, or 9.7 percent, the total amount ...

Farmer Mac reported $372.1 million in net new business for the first quarter of 2018, bringing its outstanding business volume to $19.4 billion.

By Bert Ely Several readers noted that last month’s Farm Credit Watch, issue #240, marked the 20th anniversary of the monthly publication of the FCW, which triggered a look-back at the FCW’s accomplishments over the last 20 years, and there have been a few. Perhaps the most significant has been educating bankers and other readers about what the FCS — ...

In a joint letter with the Independent Community Bankers of America yesterday, ABA wrote to leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees thanking them for their efforts to craft the 2018 Farm Bill.