The Farm Storage Facility Loan (FSFL) Program, administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA), offers financial assistance to eligible producers for constructing or upgrading farm storage and handling facilities. This program helps producers manage their storage needs and maintain the quality of their agricultural products. FSFL loans can be used to purchase, construct, or renovate new or used storage facilities and handling equipment, including storage and handling trucks.
Program Features:
- Eligibility: Eligible applicants include producers who demonstrate a need for storage based on three years of production history. The program is available to all eligible farmers and ranchers, with special provisions for new or small producers through the microloan option.
- Loan Purposes:
- Acquire, construct, or upgrade new or used, portable or permanently affixed, on-farm storage and handling facilities.
- Acquire new or used storage and handling trucks.
- Acquire portable or permanently affixed storage and handling equipment.
- Loan Amounts: Producers may borrow up to $500,000 per loan, with a minimum down payment of 15%. A microloan option is available for loans up to $50,000 with a lower down payment of 5% and reduced documentation requirements.
- Interest Rates: Fixed interest rates determined by the FSA, generally lower than conventional loan rates.
- Repayment Terms: Loan terms are up to 12 years, depending on the amount of the loan. Microloan terms are shorter.
Microloan Option:
- Loan Amount: Up to $50,000.
- Down Payment: 5.5%.
- Documentation: Reduced documentation requirements; producers can self-certify the storage needs of the eligible commodity.
How It Works:
- Eligible Commodities:
- Corn, grain sorghum, wheat, oats, or barley harvested as other than whole grain.
- Other grains (triticale, speltz, and buckwheat).
- Pulse crops (lentils, chickpeas, and dry peas).
- Hay, honey, renewable biomass, fruits (including nuts) and vegetables (cold storage facilities), floriculture, hops, malted small grains, maple sap, maple syrup, milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, eggs, meat/poultry (unprocessed), rye, aquaculture, hemp, seed cotton, wool.
Environmental Evaluation Requirements:
- Loans must be approved by the local FSA state or county committee before any site preparation or construction can begin.
- All loan requests are subject to an environmental evaluation. Accepting delivery of equipment, starting site preparation, or construction before loan approval may adversely affect loan eligibility.
Eligible Facilities, Equipment, and Upgrades:
- Facilities:
- Conventional cribs or bins.
- Oxygen-limiting structures and remanufactured oxygen-limiting structures.
- Flat-type storage structures.
- Bunker-type, horizontal, or open silo structures with at least two concrete walls and a concrete floor.
- Structures suitable for storing hay, renewable biomass, or bulk tanks for milk or maple sap.
- Cold storage buildings, including prefabricated buildings suitable for eligible commodities, with cooling, circulating, and monitoring equipment.
- Equipment:
- Electrical and handling equipment (excluding installation of electrical service to the meter).
- Safety equipment, such as interior and exterior ladders and lighting.
- Equipment to improve, maintain, or monitor the quality of stored grain.
- Concrete foundations, aprons, pits, and pads.
- Grain handling and drying equipment.
- Other equipment, including baggers, boxers, brush polishers, bulk bin tippers, case palletizers, cement flooring, circulation fans, cold dip tanks, conveyors, drying tunnels, dumpers, safety equipment meeting OSHA requirements, sealants, sizers, sorting bins/tables, storage and handling trucks, washers, waxers, and weight graders.
Where to File the Application:
- Loan applications should be filed in the administrative FSA county office that maintains the farm’s records.
