A recent Farm Credit System loan for $2 million to finance a new Exxon gas station and convenience store in Sheridan, Wy., is almost certainly another example of an FCS lending abuse. This gas station is located at an Interstate highway interchange in a city with a population of about 18,000. While some farmers and ranchers may patronize the gas station and store, they are more likely gas up at a nearby farm co-op store.
The 2018 Farm Bill offers bankers many new ways, not all of them intuitive, to help their customers.
Dallas Tonsager, chairman and CEO of the Farm Credit Administration died of lymphoma on May 21; he was 64. Tonsager was appointed to the FCA board by President Barack Obama on March 13, 2015, and designated by President Obama as chairman and CEO on November 22, 2016. Tonsager grew up on a dairy farm near Oldham, S.D., and later graduated from South Dakota State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture. Apart from serving on the FCA board, Tonsager’s public service included serving as the USDA’s undersecretary for rural development, a director of the Commodity Credit Corporation and USDA’s state director for rural development in South Dakota.
In a comment letter to the Farm Credit Administration today, the American Bankers Association called on the agency to make changes to how it reports data on young, beginning ad small farmers.
The American Bankers Association today wrote to House lawmakers in support of H.R. 1872, the Enhancing Credit Opportunities in Rural America Act.
The nation’s farm banks increased agricultural lending by 5.3%, or $5.5 billion, to $108 billion in 2018, according to the American Bankers Association’s annual Farm Bank Performance Report released today.
Kristie Holoch’s bank is not just in the business of serving farmers, families and small businesses in the 33 Nebraska towns where it has branches — it also serves its fellow Nebraska community banks.
Despite some economic challenges facing the agriculture industry—including low farm incomes and falling commodity prices—the nation’s 1,4000 ag banks remain in “sound financial condition,” Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman said in remarks to bankers during an industry event in New Mexico today.
Rep. Steve Watkins (R-Kan.) today introduced the Enhancing Credit Opportunities for Rural America Act (H.R. 1872), which would end taxation of interest earned from agricultural real estate loans.
