Customer-members receive $99.4 million in cash patronage
SPOKANE, Wash. (Feb. 22, 2017) – Northwest Farm Credit Services, the Northwest’s leading financial cooperative supporting agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural communities, announced 2016 earnings of $247.2 million, compared to $255.6 million in 2015. The higher earnings in 2015 was the result of larger credit loss reversals in that year. Total capital increased 7.2 percent during the year to $2.2 billion.
“Despite the downturn in price and demand for some agricultural commodities, 2016 turned out to be another year of solid financial performance for our collective customer base,” said President and CEO Phil DiPofi. “As a result, Northwest FCS continues to grow in loan volume, capital and patronage paid to our customer-members.”
As a cooperative, Northwest FCS returns a share of its net earnings to customer-members in the form of patronage dividends. The Northwest FCS board recently approved patronage of 1.0 percent of a customer-member’s eligible average daily loan balance. Cash patronage for 2016 totaled a record $99.4 million compared to $91.9 million for 2015. Since the patronage program began in 2000, Northwest FCS has returned $690 million in cash patronage to customer-members.
For more information about current market conditions, see Northwest FCS Industry Insights.
About Northwest Farm Credit Services
Northwest FCS is an $11 billion financial cooperative providing financing and related services to farmers, ranchers, agribusinesses, commercial fishermen, timber producers, rural homeowners and crop insurance customers in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Northwest FCS is a member of the nationwide Farm Credit System that supports agriculture and rural communities with reliable, consistent credit and financial services. For more information, go to northwestfcs.com.