Growing Agribusiness

GROWING AGRIBUSINESS AT AGCOUNTRY

Written by Randy Aberle, Agribusiness and Capital Markets

As our producer members go to the fields this spring in hopes of “growing” a bountiful crop, our AgCountry Agribusiness segments have been “on the grow” for several years, consistently growing our contributions to our association’s success. Our Agribusiness department was formed as a separate department at Farm Credit Services of Fargo in 1995. Our visionary Board of Directors at the time wanted to serve more customers and diversify both our risk and income sources for the member-owned cooperative. We started with one staff member to determine if we could attract eligible agribusinesses in our marketplace territory under our Farm Credit association lending authorities. Word of mouth advertising along with the support of our producer members’ connections with local agribusinesses supported our efforts. Looking back, that was a long time ago with pretty meager results compared to today.

Today, after several association mergers, our association territory has expanded; offering more financing opportunities for agribusiness. We have expanded our specialized Agribusiness and Capital Markets team to over 25 direct team members. This team is further supported by our AgCountry Credit and Finance teams. We finance producers looking to move up the value added chain through further processing and marketing of their farm production as well as the companies providing farm inputs and purchasing farm products from producers. We act as a Lead Lender on large shared credit facilities to agribusinesses, selling portions of these large credits to other lenders and Farm Credit associations for risk management. We have also joined with other farm credit associations and lenders across the country to provide lending capacity to finance large borrowers by purchasing portions of their shared credits. In 2020, we served over 400 different agribusinesses in meeting their financing needs. One recent event was expanding credit lines for agribusinesses purchasing commodities from farmers with the rapidly rising commodity prices. We were there when our customers called seeking help managing their rapidly growing credit needs.

We have joined Farm Credit collaborations in developing technology and delivery channels to provide financing solutions for point of purchase machinery financing under the “AgDirect” label; point of purchase crop input financing under the “ProPartners Financial” label; and partnered with Farm Credit Leasing to provide leasing solutions to our customers.

AgCountry’s Agribusiness and Capital Markets Lending objectives remain similar to our early objectives and are fully supported by our elected Board of Directors: • Support loan portfolio diversification • Quality/Safety with adequate risk/return • Retain and grow market share through various delivery channels • Assist strategic partners in serving large customers • Align with system partners to serve the agribusiness and capital markets marketplace • Discipline credit and marketplace delivery • Industry specialization/knowledge

Our AgCountry association will always have a primary focus on serving the farmer producer members of our cooperative. The AgCountry Agribusiness segments support our producers’ agribusinesses and have become an integral part of our association’s growth and success. The revenue and risk diversification of these segments allows our association to provide more services and risk-bearing capital to serve both our producers and agribusiness member-owners in the changing world of agriculture. This ensures we are well positioned to continue our mission of “serving agriculture and rural America.” Thank you for your support of your local cooperative.