Farm banks increased their agricultural lending by 7.9 percent in 2015 and held $100.3 billion in ag loans at year’s end, according to the ABA Center for Agricultural and Rural Banking’s annual Farm Bank Performance Report released today.
ABA and more than 250 other farm-related groups today wrote to the leaders of the congressional appropriations and budget committees, urging them not to make further cuts to federal agriculture programs.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued a final rule establishing a process by which a businesses and individuals can appeal the bureau’s designation of a rural area.
In a joint letter yesterday, ABA and several farming industry groups called on congressional budget committees to protect crop insurance as they develop budget proposals for fiscal year 2017, urging them not to reopen the 2014 Farm Bill in their efforts to reduce the national deficit.
The council’s five-page, histrionic rebuttal makes numerous false assertions about the FCS’s lending and other practices that House Ag Committee members had sharply criticized.
Usually witnesses, especially those from a federal agency overseen by the committee whose members posed the questions, respond quickly and fully to those questions. It is not smart for an agency to do otherwise. However, the FCA seems to be the exception as 57 days later it still has not answered the questions put to it at the hearing.
Top tips from ag lenders: leverage Farmer Mac, provide value-added with free financial analysis and lead with fixed-rate products.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today approved a final rule requiring swap dealers and major swap participants to exchange initial margin and variation margin with counterparties to swaps not cleared through a central counterparty.
ABA and the Independent Community Bankers of America issued a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture today urging the USDA to designate cottonseed as an ‘other oilseed’ for purposes of the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs.
The Farm Credit System was on the hot seat during a long-due oversight hearing.