Cliff

I talk with a banker at Community Bank in Baker, Oregon. They do a lot with local farmers and ranchers. Just want to find out what a farmer or rancher goes through. If he needs alone. Here's banker Cliff Schoeningh.

Doing ag dealis are part of my portfolio. For sure. The typical interaction is that a lot of farmers and ranchers are looking for operating loans and or if they're trying to expand their operation, possibly buy real estate or equipment or anything like that. That's the type of thing I would do. I would finance those type of things.

The ag economy, if you listen to the farmers and ranchers, they all have a pretty sad tale to tell these days because of trade problems, input costs, commodity prices down. When you work on a guy for a loan, do you take all that stuff into account?

Well, absolutely. And it is pretty tough times right now. As far as commodity prices go and of course, trade relationships have had an impact on that. Input costs go up and commodity prices don't necessarily follow. So it's a pretty tough deal. The price of real estate hasn't necessarily gone down. Fixed costs continue to go up. Rates have moderated and even gone down here recently. So that's kind of helping out a little bit.

Given that a farmer has a good track record, how difficult is it for him to get a loan from your bank? Not that difficult. And that's good news.