Ag Policy Blog

President Joe Biden ended most pandemic national emergency responses last April following a congressional resolution, but USDA's Farm Service Agency continues to suspend past-due collections and foreclosures for financially distressed and delinquent loans.

FSA sent out a notice Tuesday to state and county offices spelling out that they remain suspended from taking actions against delinquent borrowers under the Farm Storage Facility Loan (FSFL) program.

USDA's actions come under provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. At the end of November, USDA announced $208 million in automatic financial assistance to distressed borrowers under Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act.

USDA stated at that time it would cover approximately $80 million in delinquencies for an estimated 210 borrowers who had qualifying guaranteed loans and were facing liquidation proceedings. Another $128 million was used for 1,230 borrowers who had outstanding emergency loans. Distressed borrowers in bankruptcy were being helped on a case-by-case review that USDA set up in October 2022.

Since October 2022, USDA has provided approximately $1.7 billion in debt relief to more than 30,000 financially distressed direct and guaranteed FSA loan borrowers.

USDA has suspended such debt collections and foreclosures on distressed borrowers since early 2021.

In the November release, USDA stated that FDA continues to accept assistance requests from distressed borrowers who missed payments on direct loans as well as distressed borrowers " who took certain extraordinary measures to avoid delinquency on their qualifying direct loans." The deadlines for much of that assistance was Dec. 31, 2023.

More details on IRA assistance at USDA https://www.farmers.gov/…

Farm Storage Facility Loan Program https://www.fsa.usda.gov/…

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

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