APRIL 2021
President’s Message
Helping You Succeed A borrower was recently contacted by his AgCredit account officer to have his loan repriced after rates dropped. While signing the documents, he commented, “You know, other lenders just don’t do this!” The account officer responded, “Well Jim, we’re not just any lender. We’re a cooperative, and we’re working for you!” When I heard about this exchange, it put a smile on my face and caused me to think about the value AgCredit provides as a cooperative lender that helps our borrowers succeed. I then began to consider other ways our team is helping borrowers succeed. It didn’t take long for AgCredit’s participation in the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to enter my mind as a recent and quite powerful example. BRIAN RICKER
The PPP was created during the early days of the pandemic to provide potentially forgivable loans to qualifying business owners, including farmers. In January 2021, the program was expanded for a second round, and changes to eligibility allowed a larger group of farmers to qualify. We quickly realized the benefits of the second round were significant and there would be a lot of interest in the program. In addition, a number of lenders who participated in the first round were not planning to participate in the second round due in part to the program’s complexity, lack of program details and other challenges experienced with the first round. Like other businesses, AgCredit has finite resources, and we must allocate those resources to best serve the needs of our customers. We knew we were entering our busiest time of the year even without PPP loans and knew the
highest three-month period of loan actions ever experienced was 3,000 during an incredibly busy April-June period last year. Despite having finite resources and very little time to plan and train, it was imperative for AgCredit to participate in the program and effectively serve our customers. We committed ourselves to figuring out how we could close all of these loans with not fully understanding how the association itself would be fully compensated. As a result, our plan started to take shape, and an all hands-on-deck approach was taken to serve our members. The experience reminded me about the importance of being agile and the need to act with a sense of urgency when opportunities are presented. Though we are not all the way through the period as I submit this article, I am proud to report we are more than getting the job done. Thus far, the AgCredit team: • Serviced more than 2,200 PPP applications and received approvals on over $34 million of low-interest and potentially forgivable loans. • Continued to provide timely service on our regular mix of other loan actions during our busy season. • Is on course to shatter the record of loan actions set last year and, more importantly, pulling off something that means a great deal to the future success of our members. The accomplishments of our team are monumental and I am very proud of how each and every employee has responded. More importantly, our team recognized the significance of the PPP and understood it was the right thing to do for our members and their operations.
