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News Briefs, Summer 2012

News items for the summer of 2012

Landscapes Summer 2012
NEWS BRIEFS

New Bank Chairman, Vice Chairman Elected

Jimmy Dodson

Jimmy Dodson

James F. “Jimmy” Dodson was elected chairman and Lester Little was elected vice chairman of the Farm Credit Bank of Texas Board of Directors in January. They will serve one-year terms on the seven-member board.

A farmer and agribusiness owner from Robstown, Texas, Dodson was first elected to the board in 2003, and was elected vice chairman in January 2009.

In addition, he serves on the boards of the National Cotton Council of America, Gulf Coast Cooperative and the South Texas Cotton and Grain Association, and he is chairman of the American Cotton Producers. He is a former board chairman of Texas AgFinance.

Lester Little

Lester Little

Little owns a farming operation that is headquartered in Lavaca, Texas, and also offers custom-farming services. He is the former chairman of the Capital Farm Credit Board of Directors and is a past vice chairman of the district’s Stockholders Advisory Committee.

Little is a Farm Bureau member and serves with the Lavaca Regional Water Planning Group.

Patronage Payments Total $188.4 Million

Farm Credit Bank of Texas and its affiliated lending cooperatives declared $188.4 million in patronage distributions to borrowers, based on 2011 earnings. Together, these institutions constitute the Texas Farm Credit District.

District net income was a record $368.7 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2011, compared with $275.3 million for the previous year.

The Austin-based bank alone returned $66.3 million in cash patronage and allocated earnings to its owners and other patrons last winter. The patronage distribution represented 38 percent of the bank’s net income of $174.2 million for 2011.

“We are pleased to distribute a significant portion of last year’s earnings to the rural financing co-ops that own the bank,” said Larry Doyle, FCBT chief executive officer. “Many of these lenders serve territories that were heavily impacted by challenging weather and economic circumstances in 2011, and this patronage payment helps them continue to offer competitive financing to their borrowers.”

He attributed the bank’s profitability largely to its access to low-cost funding and its careful debt management strategy of replacing high-cost debt with lower-cost debt.

Farm Credit Supports Grain Producer Indemnity Fund

Eleven local Farm Credit lending cooperatives in Texas and the Farm Credit Bank of Texas have committed more than $32,000 to help promote and conduct a referendum, currently planned for fall, in support of grain growers. If approved, the referendum would establish an indemnity fund to help protect the state’s grain producers in the event of financial failure on the part of the elevator or storage facility.

The fund would be under the authority of the newly created Texas Grain Producer Indemnity Board. AgTexas Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Harris was elected treasurer of the board.

The board’s establishment is the result of state legislation, passed in 2011, that was introduced after a series of grain elevator financial failures in recent years resulted in millions of dollars in losses to Texas grain producers.

Janet Reinart holding a quilt

A Quilt for Farm Credit

Great Plains Ag Credit stockholder Janet Reinart of Stratford, Texas, displays the quilt she made and donated to the 2012 Farm Credit Political Action Committee (PAC) auction, held during the Farm Credit Bank of Texas Annual Stockholders Meeting in March.

The auction and sweepstakes drawing raised $85,800 to benefit the PAC. Reinart, who frequently creates quilts for charitable causes, included the Farm Credit 95th anniversary logo on the back of the quilt to commemorate the event.

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