USDA Announces April 2025 Lending Rates for Agricultural Producers

Apr 02, 2025

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced loan interest rates for April 2025, which are effective April 1, 2025. USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) loans provide important access to capital to help agricultural producers start or expand their farming operation, purchase equipment and storage structures or meet cash flow needs.

Operating, Ownership and Emergency Loans
FSA offers farm ownership, operating and emergency loans with favorable interest rates and terms to help eligible agricultural producers obtain financing needed to start, expand or maintain a family agricultural operation.

Interest rates for Operating and Ownership loans for April 2025 are as follows:       

Farm Operating Loans (Direct): 5.375%
Farm Ownership Loans (Direct): 5.750%
Farm Ownership Loans (Direct, Joint Financing): 3.750%
Farm Ownership Loans (Down Payment): 1.750%
Emergency Loan (Amount of Actual Loss): 3.750%

FSA also offers guaranteed loans through commercial lenders at rates set by those lenders. To access an interactive online, step-by-step guide through the farm loan process, visit the Loan Assistance Toolon farmers.gov.       

Commodity and Storage Facility Loans     
Additionally, FSA provides low-interest financing to producers to build or upgrade on-farm storage facilities and purchase handling equipment and loans that provide interim financing to help producers meet cash flow needs without having to sell their commodities when market prices are low.  Funds for these loans are provided through the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) and are administered by FSA.   

Commodity Loans(less than one year disbursed): 5.125%
Farm Storage Facility Loans:
Three-year loan terms: 4.000%
Five-year loan terms: 4.125%
Seven-year loan terms: 4.125%
Ten-year loan terms: 4.250%
Twelve-year loan terms: 4.375%
Sugar Storage Facility Loans (15 years): 4.500%

Source : usda.gov

Video: EP 65 Grazing Through Drought

Welcome to the conclusion of the Getting Through Drought series, where we look at the best management practices cow-calf producers in Alberta can use to build up their resiliency against drought.

Our hope is that the series can help with the mental health issues the agriculture sector is grappling with right now. Farming and ranching are stressful businesses, but that’s brought to a whole new level when drought hits. By equipping cow-calf producers with information and words of advice from colleagues and peers in the sector on the best ways to get through a drought, things might not be as stressful in the next drought. Things might not look so bleak either.

In this final episode of the series, we are talking to Ralph Thrall of McIntyre Ranch who shares with us his experience managing grass and cows in a pretty dry part of the province.