While the 2018 Farm Bill authorized production and processing of hemp plants with less than 0.3% THC content, bankers need to carefully review USDA’s rules for production and licensing. Meanwhile, legal production of hemp derivatives will depend on guidance from the FDA.
As a banker working in rural America, you surely know a small town or two that seems to be dwindling away. For many years, the population has been shifting from rural areas to urban and suburban areas. ABA’s Ed Elfmann writes about how this movement is changing the markets for ag and rural banks, and what bankers can do.
ABA today recommended several changes to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s interim final rule that would facilitate banks offering services to hemp growers and hemp-related businesses.
By Bert Ely American agriculture is experiencing extraordinary financial stress, unlike anything farmers and ranchers…
Kansas banker Shan Hanes testified before a House Agriculture Subcommitee today, offering the association’s perspective on agricultural credit issues in rural America.
The federal banking agencies and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, in consultation with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, today issued guidance long sought by ABA on banks’ Bank Secrecy Act obligations related to hemp producers.
Read more in the ABA/Farmer Mac Agricultural Lender Survey.
While the agricultural sector continues to face numerous challenges, “there’s a lot of optimism” among ag lenders looking ahead to the next 12 months, ABA Chief Economist James Chessen said in an interview today with RFD-TV’s “Market Day Report” program.
With the farm economy in the midst of a prolonged downturn, the primary concern among ag lenders in 2019 was credit quality and the deterioration of agricultural loans, according to the latest agricultural lenders survey conducted by the American Bankers Association and Farmer Mac.
The United States Department of Agriculture today issued a long-awaited interim final rule establishing new regulations and procedures for the legal production of industrial hemp, as required by the 2018 Farm Bill.