Ag Policy Blog

USDA on Monday announced the department was providing nearly $130 million in automatic payment relief for Farm Service Agency direct loan borrowers who had been up to 60 days past due or had restructured their debt in the past three years.

The funding was part of $3.1 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to help distressed farm-loan borrowers. Since the IRA passed last fall, USDA stated the department has provided roughly $1.1 billion in aid to more than 20,000 distressed farm-loan borrowers.

USDA also stated that FSA will start accepting applications this month to review requests from distressed borrowers for aid. Eligible producers would be those who have missed recent loan payments or are unable to make their next installment (payment). Producers who are within two months of their next installment can receive a cashflow analysis from FSA to determine their eligibility.

FSA stated all borrowers should have received a letter detailing the process.

A link to that information can be found here: https://www.farmers.gov/…

USDA also will send out another letter in May to help producers who "took certain extraordinary measures to avoid delinquency on their loans." This aid could help producers who refinanced more debt, sold property or cashed out retirement or college-savings accounts to pay their FSA loans. "FSA also plans to begin working through these types of cases in May."

For those who received automatic loan support, that aid came for borrowers who met the following conditions:

-Borrowers whose interest exceeded principle owed on outstanding debts.

-Borrowers who had a balance of up to 60 days past due as of Sept. 30, 2022, and remain delinquent.

-Borrowers with a recent restructure between Feb. 28, 2020, through March 27, 2023.

-And borrowers who had accepted an offer to restructure on or before March 27, 2023, but had not yet closed that restructure.

Producers can find more information on the loan payments, as well as applications for Emergency Program Relief Phase 2 and the Pandemic Assistance Revenue Program at www.farmers.gov

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN

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