America’s agriculture and farmers across the nation desperately rely on direct loans which are offered by the Agriculture Department to fund and boost their business operations.
A new tool named as “Farm Loan Discovery” is launched by USDA. This tool will support producers in identifying the Agriculture loans that would best meet their specific needs. This tool can be accessed through the agency’s ‘farmers.gov’ site by the farmers and ranchers across America. It removes the mystery out of the loan application process.
The tool will cover youth loans, microloans, farm ownership loans, farm operating loans and guaranteed loans. Farmers generally incur a variety of expenses like buying new land to expand operations, investing in new equipments and purchasing seed or livestock. All these expenses are taken care in the new tool. There are other tools too that are easily available in the market, like the www.kreditus.eu website, where the farmers can compare different loan opportunities and get the best solution.
In his interview to Nextgov, Mr. Richard Fordyce – Administrator of Farm Service Agency (FSA) remarked that “He personally feels seeking a loan and thereafter following its process on occasions is very confusing for majority of the farmers. This intuitive new tool is a solution to make their potential borrowers more comfortable and more prepared.”
“Their journey to offer a farm loan tool on the site click started with the idea that even farm loans should be equally accessible just like any commercial credit loan or a simple mortgage-type loan is available in the market” says Mr. Chad Sheridan who is the chief of USDA’s Service Delivery and Operations, and instrumental in the development and rollout of farmers.gov.
Sources of the department reveal that this tool is meant to enhance the encounters faced by farmers every now and then. The tool provides all the baseline information which the farmers need before meeting the loan officers to complete their applications.
In future USDA also plans to add new functionality and capabilities to farmers.gov which seems to be their next step immediately. The agency is trying to consider the following programs:
- Enable self-service for farm loans
- Plan new releases around disaster programs
- New document management system and
- Electronic signature capabilities
With these assignments in place the farmers will not be required to leave their farms for chasing down different administrative functions.
