A bipartisan group of 28 Senators are urging the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture to support robust funding for the Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) loan programs, which help family farmers start and maintain farming operations.
FSA loans aim to help small farms that cannot otherwise obtain favorable credit, including beginning farmers, women and minorities, and other disadvantaged borrowers. FSA’s loan programs include operating loans, which fund expenses such as livestock, equipment and seed, and ownership loans that help farmers develop land.
In June 2016, due to a shortfall in funding for FSA operating loans, hundreds of farmers whose loans had already been approved could not receive the funds. As a result, Congress was forced to pass an emergency appropriation in December of 2016 to address the shortfall.
“These loans are cost-efficient and work in tandem with private credit to serve farmers in need,” the senators wrote to the committee. “Because of these loans, family farmers can get their crops in the ground and continue to serve their customers, even during tough economic times. Without FSA loans, these farmers would lack access to the operating capital that is necessary for any farm business to stay afloat.”
President’s Trump’s FY18 Budget requests only $17.9 billion for the United States Department of Agriculture, 21 percent decrease from the 2017 continuing resolution level, the senators said.
“Any cut in FSA loan funding would cause great hardship for our nation’s farmers, and hit new, small, and other underserved farmers the hardest,” the senators continued. “With agricultural economists predicting no end in the near future to depressed commodity prices and the resulting downturn in the overall farm economy, it is all the more important to ensure that our nation’s farmers have the capital they need to continue to invest in their businesses.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, National Farmers Union, Farm Credit Council, American Bankers Association, Independent Community Bankers of America, and Opportunity Finance Network endorsed the letter.