USDA has recently launched a new feature on farmers.gov which is the Department’s self-service website for farmers. They have introduced a new tool by the name “Farm Loan Discovery”. This tool is one of many resources on farmers.gov which will help connect the farmers to information that can help them in smoothing their operations.
Farmers and ranchers can now find information on U.S. Department of Agriculture farm loans that may best fit their operations. “Access to credit especially for new farmers is very critical in the agriculture industry” says Bill Northey – Undersecretary of USDA for farm production and conservation. He further added that this new interactive tool can help farmers find information on loan in within minutes. USDA team is constantly working to improve their customer service and figure out how farmers can work with them online. In addition, various financial services like finance43.com have also come up which provide these farmers and other common public with the ability to search the best financial offers from around the world.
To access the Farm Loan Discovery Tool the farmers need to visit “farmers.gov/fund” site and click the “Start” button. Post which they need to follow the prompts and quickly answer five questions to receive loan information that is applicable to their agricultural operation. The farmers can run this tool on any modern browser like Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari. The tool is fully functional on mobile devices. However it does not work in Internet Explorer.
Last year in 2018, USDA unveiled farmers.gov which is a dynamic, mobile-friendly public website. This website is combined with an authenticated portal where farmers are able to apply for programs, process transactions and manage accounts as well.
In their effort to bring this Farm Loan Discovery tool USDA had conducted field research in eight states. They collectively gathered inputs from farmers and FSA farm loan staff to have a better understanding of the needs of farmers and the challenges faced by them.
The Farm Service Agency (FSA) of USDA offers a variety of loan options which help farmers in financing their operations. FSA loans can help in buying land as well as in financing the purchase of equipment.
