FARM CREDIT AID SEEN BROADENED TO OTHER LENDERS
Farm-state Senators indicated they
may broaden a Farm Credit System rescue package to include aid
for borrowers from private lenders such as commercial banks, as
well as the farm credit system.
    Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., chairman of the Senate
Agriculture subcommittee responsible for farm credit, said
legislation to rescue the financially-troubled system should
provide help to borrowers from all lenders to agriculture.
    "We must provide some form of interest rate buydown,
principal reduction relief for all eligible farmers and
ranchers regardless of their lending institution," Boren said.
    Boren's statement received bipartisan support from Sen.
James McClure, R-Idaho, who agreed that the aid package should
cover all lenders to agriculture.
    The comments by Senators of both parties, plus endorsements
for the across-the-board approach from the nation's largest
farm organization, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and
from the system itself, appeared to significantly broaden the
focus of the rescue legislation for the farm credit system.
Until now, agriculture officials had focused exclusively on how
to resurrect the failing system.
    Boren said borrowers from private lenders such as
commercial banks and life insurance companies must be included
in the aid package because "it would not be fair to address
only the problems of Farm Credit System borrowers."
    However, Boren and other proponents of an across-the-board
interest rate or principal buydown did not say how much the
broad approcah would cost.
    But Neil Harl, professor of economics at Iowa State
University told the hearing the cost could be in the range of
3.5 billion dlrs annually.
 Reuter
