The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 made permanent the interest assistance program for the Farm Service Agency's guaranteed loans, authorized a significant increase in funding for the program, and targeted funding for beginning farmers and ranchers. The research presented here...

Past research on agricultural loan pricing is not extensive and has been hampered by a lack of suitable data. The Farm Service Agency (FSA) has guaranteed approximately 5 percent of farm debt of the Farm Credit System (FCS) and banks, the primary lenders to agriculture. As a requirement of the...

Risks associated with guarantees of land contracts are expected to be greater than guarantees of loans made by commercial lenders. Farmers utilizing seller-financing have greater debts, less cash flow, less equity in real estate, and less solvency than farmers utilizing regular FSA guarantees....

Results of a study completed for Congress indicate direct program borrowers are more financially stressed than guaranteed borrowers and that many current farm loan program borrowers may not be able to continue farming, at least in the short-term, without access to government subsidized credit....