USDA has reserved roughly $130 million in additional financial assistance for qualifying farm loan program borrowers facing financial risk. The funds are part of the $3.1 billion to help distressed farm loan borrowers provided through the Inflation Reduction Act.
After being signed in August 2022, the IRA has provided approximately $1.1 billion to over 20,000 borrowers.
“Through the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress directed USDA to deliver financial assistance to distressed farm loan borrowers as quickly as possible, and that is what we are delivering to help producers across the country stay on their land,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement. “USDA is hard at work to provide our most vulnerable producers the opportunity to generate long-term stability and success. Our goal is to make sure we provide producers access to the tools they need to help get back to a financially viable path and ultimately succeed as thriving agricultural businesses.”
This month, the Farm Service Agency will begin accepting and reviewing distressed borrower assistance requests from direct loan borrowers who missed a recent installment or are unable to make their next scheduled installment. FSA borrowers will receive a letter detailing a new opportunity to receive assistance if they took certain extraordinary measures to avoid delinquency on their loans, such as taking on or refinancing more debt, selling property, or cashing out retirement or college savings accounts.
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