Indigo Ag and Farmer Mac announce joint program to reward farmers for sustainable practices

Date:04-04-2023

Indigo Ag, the premier sustainability partner of the agriculture industry, and the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac: NYSE: AGM and AGM.A), the nation’s secondary market that increases the accessibility of financing for American agriculture and rural infrastructure, announced a new joint program to reward U.S. farmers for maintaining their existing or adopting new sustainable practices on their land such as reduced tillage, cover crops, crop rotation or nitrogen optimization. The Indigo & Farmer Mac Sustainable Agriculture Incentive Program provides interest rate rebate payments to participating U.S. farmers with eligible Farmer Mac farm mortgages for performing sustainable practices and providing annual agronomic data.

Farmers who are accepted into this sustainable farming program will be eligible to access a three-year 0.25% interest rate rebate payment on the principal balance of qualifying Farmer Mac farm mortgages. The Indigo & Farmer Mac Sustainable Agriculture Incentive Program is currently available through participating lenders to qualifying farming operations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska through completion of spring planting, or until the program loan limit has been reached, whichever occurs first.

The joint program will also qualify farmers to make more money from their sustainable practices through Indigo Ag’s sustainability programs, including Carbon by Indigo and its sustainable crop (scope 3) program, Market+ Source. Additionally, through Indigo Ag’s recently announced FieldFlex, farmers can participate in both carbon credit and sustainable crop programs on the same field over different years, maximizing income across crop rotations. This combination of a rebate and additional revenue streams highlights Indigo Ag’s commitment to maximizing farmer profitability through sustainable agricultural practices.

″Farmer Mac is always exploring new and innovative opportunities to deliver added value to our network of lenders and their farm customers,″ stated Farmer Mac Chief Business Officer Zack Carpenter. ″We are excited to collaborate with Indigo Ag on this new way to deploy financial incentives that support producers who have implemented or plan to implement these agricultural practices.″

″We are thrilled to collaborate with Farmer Mac to offer an incremental economic benefit to both farmers who are new to sustainable agriculture, and to those who’ve been performing practices that sequester carbon on their farms for years,″ said Indigo Ag Chief Financial Officer, John Frederick. ″Through this collaboration, Indigo Ag and Farmer Mac can support and accelerate sustainable practice adoption by offering growers the choice of enrolling in the program that best fits their operation and creating stackable incentives for sustainable farming practices. It is another way that we are enabling our agribusiness partners to help their growers through the transition to sustainable agriculture.″