Fort Worth, Texas (October 13, 2023) – Ag Resource Management (ARM) Chief Executive Officer Rip Mason returned to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s National Agricultural Credit Conference today to comment on the benefits of alternative agricultural finance for farmers and traditional lenders.
Held this week in Atlanta, the National Agricultural Credit Conference occurs twice each year and brings together U.S. agricultural credit leaders, policymakers, and regulators to discuss recent developments related to agricultural credit and finance.
“ARM plays an important, unique role in the agricultural finance market by working with banks to serve borrowers who may not qualify for traditional financing,” said Mason. “Our model provides farmers with operating loans based on a farm budgetand crop collateral rather than equity in real estate and other assets. ARM can bridge the gap between bank offerings and farmers’ needs, and benefit both parties.”
While 2022 was a record year for net farm income in the United States, farmers have dealt with higher interest rates, inflationary pressures, and now lower grain prices in 2023. The 2024 crop season is in its early stages, and already there are concerns regarding production lending trends on the horizon.
“We are seeing a tightening credit market, more embedded debt in lines of credit, lower farm profit margins and in some cases downgrading of borrower credit ratings,” said Mason.
These can all translate into fewer options for farmers and lenders.
“We want to be sure that traditional lenders know that ARM can collaborate with them to help their borrowers and support the banks’ ongoing relationships with those borrowers,” said Mason.
ARM services borrowers through storefronts in 18 states, representing approximately two million acres of annual row crop production.