Happy 96th Birthday, Farm Credit!

Yes, you heard it right – Farm Credit has officially turned the big 9-6!  That’s a whole lot of candles to blow out.  Last week, 96 years ago, on July 17, 1916 President Woodrow Wilson signed the Farm Loan Act.

During the signing ceremony, President Wilson said, “I am very glad to have a modest part in the piece of legislation.  It is high time that something was done to provide additional financial assistance for the farmer. Our existing banking machinery, while helpful to the farmer as to all other citizens, because it has secured and assured safe banking and provided a national currency and credit, has been adapted primarily to the needs of the manufacturer and merchant. Their turnover is rapid, their assets are liquid. There has been a gap. There has been need of an agency, under understanding management, reaching out intimately and to the rural district, and operating on terms suited to the farmers’ needs. The farmer is the servant of the seasons. The gap has now been filled.”

Thanks to President Wilson, those in the photograph above (Senator Duncan Fletcher, Herbert Myrick, and David Lubin) and many others who worked hard on this legislation to make Farm Credit possible.

Happy Birthday, Farm Credit and cheers to many more years of lending support to rural America.