Ag Lender Concerns Last Year, Still Top List

WASHINGTON, DC – As the farm economy continues to work through a prolonged downturn amid a global economic slowdown, agricultural lenders remain concerned with the same factors for themselves and their borrowers as they did last year.

According to the American Bankers Association’s ABA-Farmer Mac Agricultural Lenders Survey, the top concerns for lenders are credit quality and the deterioration of agricultural loans, competition from other lenders and weak loan demand.

For farmers and ranchers, lenders remain concerned about their liquidity, income and the leverage of their ag borrowers.

A majority of lenders (78.9 percent) ranked the Farm Credit System as their top competitor for agricultural loans.

More than two-thirds (66.9 percent) ranked community banks within their top two competitors, followed by vendor financing (17.1 percent), regional banks (8.9 percent), and credit unions (8.0 percent).
(SOURCE: All Ag News)