FCC fuels up Accelerator Loans for second year

Farm Credit Canada has brought back the Accelerator Loan for another year, the federal farm lender announced Monday.

The Accelerator Loan program, which targets farmers under age 40, allows young farmers to maintain cash flow to build equity and build their farms, by providing flexibility in payment options and down payments as low as zero. The program does, however, require a seller who doesn’t need full payment up front.

FCC guarantees regular payments, over time, to the seller of assets in question, which makes the program better suited to transfers of assets from older to younger farmers.

“Operators greater than 55 years of age hold $86 billion in farm assets that will soon be moving to the next generation,” said FCC vice-president Lyndon Carlson in a release. “The Accelerator Loan makes this process easier for both the buyer and the seller.”

Participating young farmers also get free access to an FCC AgriSuccess management training workshop on financial management, human resource management, price risk management or vision or goal setting. They also get AgExpert Analyst, FCC’s farm financial management software, free. Sellers who participate in the Accelerator program, meanwhile, get free access to a workshop on succession or estate planning.

FCC committed to a budget of $50 million for the Accelerator Loan program in 2006, and farmers have so far received over $40 million through these loans since then, the corporation said. The second year of the program is also budgeted for $50 million.