HeartBeat Summer 2016 | Page 16

a look back at fcs financial For 100 years, FCS Financial has been dedicated to serving farmers, ranchers and rural communities. In good times and bad, FCS Financial has been there to help them succeed. As a member-owned cooperative, you can count on them to be there for the next 100 years. 1916 President Wilson signed the Federal Farm Loan Act on July 17, 1916, establishing what was to become the Farm Credit System. 1917 Laura Ingalls Wilder supplemented her income by working for the National Farm Loan Association from 1917 to 1928, issuing loans to small farmers from an office she set up in her farmhouse. 1933 The Farm Credit Act of 1933 allowed the establishment of Production Credit Associations (PCA). The Brookfield, Missouri, PCA was the second to form in the U.S. and held their first meeting on October 6. 1955 1953 The Production Credit System, within its first twenty years, had become operationally selfsufficient. President Eisenhower signed the Farm Credit Act of 1953. 1971 The Jefferson City Production Credit Association board members proudly announced a $60,000 payment to Production Credit Corporation of St. Louis, thus paying back the last of the government funds. With farm debt on the rise in the 1970s, the Farm Credit Act of 1971 broadened the banks’ and associations’ lending practices to include rural homeowners, commercial fishermen and businesses that provided on-the-farm services and raised the limits on land bank loans. It also allowed the associations to provide financial-related services.