01/06/09 Good farm credit

Farmers make good fiscal sense. I'm David Sparks. That story after this. The government bail out of the banking industry has to be one of the most bizarre and darkly cloudy stories of last year. The audacity of banking executives initially refusing to say how their appropriating the multibillion dollar stimulus packages they received from the feds has drawn outrage from farmers to talk show hosts. If there's any silver lining to the national financial fiasco, it's found in the common sense operating philosophy of the nations farm lenders and farm credit system which appear to be in great shape. For the first 6 months of 2008, the farm credit system's net income was up about 20% . Ken Auer with the Farm Credit council: "The good thing about the farm credit system is that we never made any sub-prime loans, we did not get into that business." Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer says that the farm sector of the economy is still very strong: "The lenders out there in the farm credit agencies are in good shape, they didn't make funny, crazy type program loans, they lent to good solid producers who can pay them back when the crops come up." And there are tremendous numbers of farmers with good solid financial statements after making record incomes last year leading Secretary Schafer to say: "I think agriculture is best positioned to move through or ride through this storm of the economy."