"Wall Street banks bailing on troubled U.S. farm sector"

Fortunately for the rural economy they are not nearly as dependent on the New York City banks as they were back in the days of the huge seasonal gold flows, from the Eastern banks in the spring to finance planting, to the Eastern banks in the fall when farmers sold their crops and paid off loans and mortgages.

Unfortunately for the rural economy the bulk of the lending for the last 30 years has been from the smaller regional and local banks who are less able to diversify loan portfolios and to absorb losses.

Keeping the staffs of the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Kansas City on their toes.
From Reuters:

In the wake of the U.S. housing meltdown of the late 2000s, JPMorgan Chase & Co hunted for new ways to expand its loan business beyond the troubled mortgage sector.

The nation’s largest bank found enticing new opportunities in the rural Midwest - lending to U.S. farmers who had plenty of income and collateral as prices for grain and farmland surged.

JPMorgan grew its farm-loan portfolio by 76 percent, to $1.1 billion, between 2008 and 2015, according to year-end figures, as other Wall Street players piled into the sector. Total U.S. farm debt is on track to rise to $427 billion this year, up from an inflation-adjusted $317 billion a decade earlier and approaching levels seen in the 1980s farm crisis, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But now - after years of falling farm income and an intensifying U.S.-China trade war - JPMorgan and other Wall Street banks are heading for the exits, according to a Reuters analysis of the farm-loan holdings they reported to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

The agricultural loan portfolios of the nation’s top 30 banks fell by $3.9 billion, to $18.3 billion, between their peak in December 2015 and March 2019, the analysis showed. That’s a 17.5% decline. 

Reuters identified the largest banks by their quarterly filings of loan performance metrics with the FDIC and grouped together banks owned by the same holding company. The banks were ranked by total assets in the first quarter of this year.

The retreat from agricultural lending by the nation’s biggest banks, which has not been previously reported, comes as shrinking cash flow is pushing some farmers to retire early and others to declare bankruptcy, according to farm economists, legal experts, and a review of hundreds of lawsuits filed in federal and state courts.

Sales of many U.S. farm products - including soybeans, the nation’s most valuable agricultural export - have fallen sharply since China and Mexico last year imposed tariffs in retaliation for U.S. duties on their goods. The trade-war losses further strained an agricultural economy already reeling from years over global oversupply and low commodity prices....

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