Ag Lender
Underwriter of the grower's operating year
Your contract price is fine. Your assumption on storage shrink is what's gonna eat you in February.
Sits across the desk from potato growers writing operating lines, equipment loans, storage-construction notes, and real-estate paper. Pulls Schedule F's, builds cash-flow projections against contract prices, walks the farm in spring to eye the iron, and structures renewals before planting. Defends the loan in committee when a borrower's numbers wobble.
Farm Credit System territories — FCS Financial in the central plains, AgCountry Farm Credit Services across the Red River Valley and eastern Dakotas, Northwest Farm Credit in Idaho and the Columbia Basin. Community ag banks in Maine, Wisconsin, and Colorado. Branch offices in towns of 4,000 with a John Deere dealership and a grain elevator.
Growers walk in with optimistic yield assumptions and a processor contract that doesn't cover variable cost if the storage crop shrinks 8%. Equipment financing requests for $400K planters from operations carrying too much short-term debt. Younger lenders pushing software-driven underwriting that doesn't account for the borrower's brother-in-law also having a lien on the same field.
A renewal that comes in clean — the borrower hit the marketing plan, the storage held, the line revolved down by August. Talking a grower out of a tractor purchase they didn't need and watching their working capital climb the next year. Closing a young-farmer loan that committee was skeptical of and seeing them make it to year three.
AgriPoint or Baker Hill loan-origination, FINPACK for cash-flow projections, Farm Credit's internal credit-scoring tools, FSA loan-guarantee paperwork, USDA NASS reports for benchmarking, FINBIN data from University of Minnesota, a Bloomberg terminal at the regional office, and an enormous spiral-bound Red Book.
Heaviest December through March — operating-line renewals before planting. Field visits cluster May-July. Quiet through harvest as growers are unreachable. Year-end review and patronage allocation work picks back up October-November. Examiner visits land whenever they land.
Career path
BS in ag economics, finance, or ag business — Kansas State, Purdue, NDSU, Cornell, U of Idaho. Most start as credit analysts at a Farm Credit branch or community ag bank, spread financials for two or three years, then move into a relationship officer seat. ABA Stonier or Graduate School of Banking at LSU or Colorado is the mid-career credential. Many grew up on operations themselves — that biography matters when sitting across from a fourth-generation grower.
Salaried base with an annual incentive tied to portfolio growth, credit quality, and patronage refunds for Farm Credit associations. Bonus paid after fiscal year-end. Community bank pay tracks closer to deposit growth and fee income than Farm Credit.
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