Ag Secretary Vilsack Visits Virginia Farm Bureau to Announce New and Expanded Access to Credit for Farmers

Vilsack attends roundtable at
Virginia Farm Bureau

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited the Virginia Farm Bureau building yesterday to announce that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has made substantial, year-over-year gains in expanding credit opportunities for farmers and ranchers across the United States. The increase in farm and operating loans has helped improve farmer and rancher productivity, launched new start-up operations, and ensured opportunities in agriculture for many more Americans. With expanded access to credit, USDA is helping a new generation of farmers sustain and build upon what is now the most productive period in history for American agriculture. To that end, Vilsack announced the Department is seeking comments on a new microloan program to help small and family operations progress through their start-up years with needed resources, while building capacity, increasing equity, and eventually graduating to commercial credit.

"Over the past three years, we have expanded farm and operating loans to Americans from all backgrounds to help raise a new crop of producers across the country," said Vilsack. "As we expand options in agriculture, we're seeing a new vibrancy across the countryside as younger people—many of whom are now involved in local and regional production—pursue livelihoods in farming, raising food for local consumption. By leveraging USDA's lending programs for beginning farmers and ranchers and smaller producers, we're helping to rebuild and revitalize our rural communities."

In the past three years, USDA has provided 103,000 loans to family farmers totaling $14.6 billion, and under Secretary Vilsack's leadership, the department is expanding the availability of farm credit with a special focus on beginning farmers and ranchers, as well as socially disadvantaged producers:

•Since 2008, the number of loans to beginning farmers and ranchers has climbed from 11,000 to 15,000. More than 40 percent of USDA's farm loans now go to beginning farmers;

•Over 50 percent of the loans went to beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. USDA has increased lending to socially-disadvantaged producers by nearly 50 percent since 2008.

•The total value of loans in persistent-poverty counties is 60 percent higher today than in 2010.