ASA and a coalition of 15 other commodity and lending groups have written to House and Senate farm bill conferees to express support for the Farm Bill to protect eligibility for farmers and ranchers participating in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) guaranteed farm loan programs.

“Unless Congress acts to eliminate borrower term limits on FSA guaranteed farm loans, several thousand farmers and ranchers will be forced out of the program at the end of 2013, and thousands more every year following,” the letter states. “Losing eligibility for the opportunity to borrow money under the program will make it very difficult for some of them to secure credit in the future. Today, over 35,000 farmers and ranchers access nearly $12 billion in credit through the USDA guaranteed farm loan programs.”

The letter goes on to explain the problem with loan terms that cannot be adapted to individual circumstances: “All borrowers under this program are expected to eventually graduate to conventional credit. Graduation out of the program is important, but some farmers and ranchers may not be able to move to conventional credit as quickly as others. Under the existing term limits, all are treated the same with no exceptions.” The losses paid on these programs have consistently averaged less than .005% since 2005 and less than .025% since 1988.

Title V of the farm bill, the Credit title, is among the many issues to be resolved during the upcoming Farm Bill conference.