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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 Corp. (FDIC). 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. 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 Reuters analysis showed, a 17.5 percent decline. 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. Read more. 

The “Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019,” supported by ABI, is scheduled to be considered today at a House Judiciary Committee mark-up. Sponsors of the Family Farmer Relief Act, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.), are circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter in both chambers urging support for the legislation. Click here to view the letter. 

A bill to prop up financially ailing multiemployer pension plans advanced in Congress yesterday as an influential House panel approved a proposal that would protect benefits promised to more than a million workers nationally, the Boston Globe reported. The measure, introduced in January by Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), was passed by the Ways and Means Committee on a 25-to-17 vote along party lines. The full House of Representatives is expected to approve it later this month. But with some committee Republicans calling it a “federal bailout,” it remains unclear if the bill will be taken up in the GOP-controlled Senate. The bill would create a new agency within the Treasury Department called the Pension Rehabilitation Administration to issue government bonds that would finance loans to underfunded multiemployer pension plans. More than 120 multiemployer plans covering 1.3 million workers and retirees are underfunded by a total of $48.9 billion, and have told regulators they could slip into insolvency within 20 years, according to a report last year by the pension consulting firm Cheiron Inc. Such plans typically draw contributions from groups of mostly small businesses.

A number of key pieces of bankruptcy legislation will be considered at a mark-up hearing by the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT. Items on the mark-up agenda include:

- Resolution authorizing issuance of subpoenas;

- H.R. 3311, the “Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019”;

- H.R. 3304, the “National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Extension Act of 2019”;

- H.R. 2938, the “Honoring American Veterans in Extreme Need Act of 2019” (“HAVEN Act”);

- and H.R. 2336, the “Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019”

To view the text of the bills and watch a live web stream of the mark-up hearing on Thursday, please click here.