FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Northwest Farm Credit Services Reports 2019 First Quarter Earnings

Customer-members receive nearly half of cooperative’s net income in cash patronage

SPOKANE, Wash. (May 3, 2019) - Northwest Farm Credit Services, the Northwest’s leading agricultural lending cooperative, announced 2019 first quarter earnings of $66.1 million, compared to $74.8 million for the same quarter of 2018. The decrease in earnings was primarily due to a lower refund of premiums previously paid to the Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation, a federal corporation that ensures the timely payment of Farm Credit debt obligations, and a higher provision for credit losses. Northwest FCS’ total capital increased 1.3 percent during the quarter to $2.6 billion.

“The credit quality of our loan portfolio remains solid -- which reflects the financial strength of our customer-members and their collective ability to deal with greater market and trade volatility," said Phil DiPofi, President and CEO. “The increased provision for credit losses was anticipated, given the economic stress in some commodity segments.”

As a cooperative, Northwest FCS returns a share of its net earnings to customer-members in the form of patronage dividends. Effective 2018, the Northwest FCS board increased the cooperative’s cash patronage from 1.0 percent to 1.25 percent of a customer-member’s eligible average daily loan balance. During the first quarter of 2019, a record $138.4 million was returned to eligible customer-members in the form of cash patronage related to 2018. Since the patronage program began in 2000, Northwest FCS has returned more than $936 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 a $12 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.

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Contact:
Deb Strohmaier, Communications Specialist
debra.strohmaier@northwestfcs.com
509.340.5443