Ag Policy Blog

Use of USDA's marketing loan program is up for the 2015 crops compared to 2014 and 2013 crop years.

Farmers increasingly are using USDA marketing loans for corn, soybeans and wheat while the loans remain a staple for peanut and cotton producers as well.

USDA reports for 2015 crops, farmers have taken out $5.9 billion in marketing loans, up about $200 million in volume from 2014. The use of loans has fluctuated over time, but was significantly lower in 2013 at $3.7 billion in volume.

For 2015, corn farmers took out 13,867 loans on 737 million bushels with $1.4 billion in loan volume. That's about $300 million more in loans than 2014 figures.

The value of the loans on corn rivals that of upland cotton, which had on 6.7 million bales for $1.74 billion in loan value.

Soybeans farmers took out 8,565 loans on 124 million bushels for 2015 for $614 million. That compares to 79 million bushels 2014 and $400 million in loan value.

Peanut farmers took out $726 million in loans on 2 million tons of crops and sugar beet farmers took out $344 million in loans on 1.4 billion pounds of sugar.

Wheat farmers took out loans on 79 million bushels for 2015 for $234 million.

Go to archived LDP/PCP and click on loan summary. http://www.fsa.usda.gov/…

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