Farm Credit Administration

Information Resource Management Strategic Plan

Fiscal Years 2023–2027 

Technology is interwoven into the fabric of the operations at the Farm Credit 

Administration. The information resource management (IRM) planning process helps us 

identify the strategic outcomes that will make the biggest difference to the success of the 

agency. By focusing on those strategic outcomes, we can direct our resources to the areas 

that will result in the highest-value outcomes.

The role of the IRM plan is to provide a program that supports effective IT asset 

management and investment control. The planning process identifies our needs for the 

development or procurement of new systems and applications. We annually review and 

update, as appropriate, this five-year plan for addressing and implementing the agency’s IT 

needs. Our strategic goals and objectives guide the IRM plan and its management. We

integrate applicable governmentwide directives affecting IRM functions into our policies, 

procedures, guidelines, and directives. 

The IRM plan provides general guidance on IT direction and helps us decide which

projects we should spend our limited resources on. The plan also ensures that all projects 

support our strategic goals and objectives. Adjustments in priorities will inevitably occur 

throughout the year through discussions with the chief operating officer, senior staff, the 

Data Advisory Group, and FCA business units. 

As part of our overall IRM program, we maintain a strong capital planning and 

investment control process. We perform our responsibilities under the guidance of Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130 “Managing Information as a Strategic 

Resource” and OMB Circular A-108 “Federal Agency Responsibilities for Review, Reporting, 

and Publication under the Privacy Act.” We also adhere to requirements under section 508 

of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Aligning the FCA strategic plan with IRM initiatives

FCA maintains an IT investment portfolio that supports, directly or indirectly, the two

strategic goals outlined in the Farm Credit Administration Strategic Plan. The most recent 

plan is available on the reports & publications section of our website at www.fca.gov.

The FCA Strategic Plan and Information Resource Management

Number Description

Goal 1 Ensure a sound financial system that provides a sustainable source of credit 

for agriculture and rural America.

Goal 2 Foster the long-term viability of the U.S. agricultural economy while 

supporting young, beginning, and small (YBS) farmers, ranchers, and aquatic 

producers.

Each initiative in the IRM plan supports our overall FCA strategic goals. 
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The Strategic Plan also identifies Stewardship Objectives. Stewardship Objective 2 is 

“Ensure data and technology assets are accessible, protected, and used effectively in a 

modern environment.” 

Stewardship 

Sub-objective Description

ST2.1 Safeguard data and technology assets and provide technology 

platforms designed to enhance employee productivity.

ST2.2 Advance evidence-based policy and organizational decision making.

FCA has mapped each of its IRM initiatives to both the strategic goals and the 

stewardship sub-objectives. Many of OIT’s initiatives address both goals; these initiatives 

are called “distributed.”

In FY 2019, FCA’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) revised its initiatives to 

consolidate activities and improve tracking of project work. Within each initiative, projects 

can be categorized as Operations & Maintenance (O&M) or Development, Modernization, or 

Enhancement (DME) efforts. O&M projects support the continued operations of the agency.

They include hardware, software maintenance, customer support, and compliance with 

various regulations and guidance from OMB, the Department of Homeland Security, the 

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and others. DME refers to projects or 

purchases that are designed to improve our ability to meet our goals by adding to or 

significantly enhancing our technology capabilities. 

In addition to the IRM plan and our operation project management framework, OIT 

maintains a detailed line-item spend plan. Developed during the budget process, the spend 

plan identifies every anticipated expense for the fiscal year. Projects listed in the OIT project 

management framework or items in the OIT spend plan are assigned an IRM initiative and 

inherit the strategic goal of that initiative.

The following IRM plan initiatives apply to all projects. The number in parenthesis to the 

right of each description is the internal ID number of the initiative; we use it to tie initiatives 

to projects in the management framework and expenses in the IT budget.
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IRM plan initiatives

Initiative Goal 1 Goal 2

Sub-objective 

1

Sub-objective 

2

Mission tools & approach (401)* X X X

Data management (402)* X X X X

DevOps/Process automation (403)* X X X

Technology platforms (404)* X X X

Information security & compliance 

(405) X X

OIT management (406) X X

Customer support (407)* X X X

FCA open data (408)* X X X X

* Initiatives that apply to both goals 1 and 2 are referred to as “Distributed.”

Detailed descriptions of initiatives

Mission tools & approach — 401

The primary objective of this initiative is to implement technology that directly supports 

mission activities, including safety and soundness examinations and other efforts that 

ensure that System institutions and Farmer Mac are safe, sound, and dependable sources of 

credit and related services for all creditworthy and eligible persons in agriculture and rural 

America. The purpose of the technology is to streamline data analysis of the System, 

improve the ability of examiners in the field to access documents, and enable a mobile 

workforce.

Data management — 402 

To do our work more efficiently and to move to a data-driven decision culture, OIT, the 

Office of Data Analytics and Economics, the Data Advisory Group, and FCA business units

work together to acquire new data, to streamline data acquisition, and to check data quality 

as it is loaded — that is, before analysis begins. This empowers users to do creative,

scenario-based analysis that may help to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

This initiative involves support for two mission-critical FCA systems: CRS (Consolidated 

Reporting System for call reports) and FCS Loans. For both systems, we receive data from 

institutions, adjust data collection requirements in response to changing needs, validate the 

data received, load the data into electronic repositories, make the data available to analysts 

and users for their risk-based examinations and analyses, and support other data analysis 

needs. The data available in both systems and the analysis performed on that data are

necessary to our mission of ensuring safe and sound banking practices across the System.
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DevOps/Process automation — 403

FCA currently uses several manual or semimanual processes to perform important 

agency activities. We are moving to more advanced automated forms and workflows that 

improve our efficiency and effectiveness. We examine current processes to identify 

opportunities to improve workflow processes with technology.

Part of this plan is procuring and implementing a human resource information system for 

the agency. This is a multiyear effort; we will purchase various modules and integrate them

in a planned sequence.

Technology platforms — 404

This initiative is an ongoing effort to improve the performance, convenience, and 

security of the FCA computer environment. OIT manages the day-to-day operations of our

state-of-the-art technology infrastructure. Functions include the care and maintenance of all 

IT equipment and enterprise software licenses, such as Microsoft. Equipment includes 

servers, laptops, mobile devices, smartphones, videoconferencing systems, phones, 

printers, monitors, TVs, etc. OIT optimizes and replaces equipment as necessary and 

provides support services such as backup/recovery, mobile device management, security 

operations, and software patch management. 

This initiative also encompasses software platforms at FCA, such as SharePoint, 

Office365, and other enterprise tools. We will continue to leverage mobile and cloud 

computing capabilities to advance the work of the agency. We have implemented several 

improvements using cloud-based platforms, such as updating our email system and the 

Helpline Services Portal. This initiative defines the strategy for cloud adoption at FCA and 

implements improvements to IT capabilities.

Information security & compliance — 405

Our agency must comply with federal government requirements established to create 

greater efficiencies in the utilization of IT resources and to enhance the security of the 

federal government. As a federal agency, we must comply with Section 508 of the 

Rehabilitation Act; the Federal Information Security Modernization Act; Trusted Internet 

Connection; disaster recovery planning; DHS continuous monitoring; and other directives of 

OMB, the Department of Homeland Security, and the president. We must also evaluate new 

regulations and the updated guidance of the National Institute of Standards and Technology 

to determine the applicability of the regulations and guidance to our IT environment.

Securing our information and protecting our reputation as a regulator is the 

responsibility of all FCA personnel. OIT leads the effort to ensure the confidentiality, 

integrity, and availability of the FCA network, information systems, and applications. OIT is 

also responsible for FCA’s privacy and controlled unclassified information programs. As 

threats to the agency’s security grow, we gain efficiency by acquiring the technology and 

security services we need to reduce those threats. By setting up an emergency site, OIT 

also plans to provide recovery services to offset service disruptions at the primary location.

OIT works to ensure that IT systems, whether designed/developed or procured, meet

the most recent Federal laws, Executive Orders, NARA guidance, and best practices for 

records management. To this end, projects undertaken by OIT will enable interoperability, 

retention and disposition, as well as updating policies and procedures to reflect changes in 

agency-wide records management business processes. The Agency Records Officer (ARO) 
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works with OIT staff as well as agency subject matter experts to incorporate records 

requirements into these projects and activities. 

OIT management — 406

OIT must ensure the effective and efficient use of IT resources. IRM planning and budget 

development, including the consolidation of the agency’s IT budget, establish IT priorities at 

the agency level. Within OIT, effective project management, budget execution and 

reconciliation processes, adherence to standard operating procedures, and development of 

internal controls facilitate greater oversight and mitigate risk.

Customer support — 407 

OIT provides on-demand end-user customer support, including assistance with IT 

equipment, mobile devices, software, and videoconferencing. To support this initiative and 

provide transparency to the agency, OIT uses a service request database to track customer 

support requests. In addition, OIT continuously supports business users with projects to 

improve the agency’s computer, network, communications, and workspace environments.

FCA open data plan — 408 

FCA is constantly looking for ways to ensure that it is as transparent as possible without 

violating privacy or confidentiality, or compromising security. We are also looking at ways to 

increase participation by, and collaboration with, our data users from other agencies and 

among the public. OIT is supporting this effort in collaboration with the chief data officer 

and the FCA Data Advisory Group. 

The Data Advisory Group is the principal internal agency forum for addressing data 

management standards, priorities, policies, and practices. The group coordinates and 

facilitates implementation of agencywide processes and standards and addresses common 

issues affecting FCA office data programs and resources. The agency’s chief data officer 

serves as chair of the group, which meets at least quarterly and includes leaders from 

across the agency.

Currently, we provide many online resources, reports, and data sets for the public, such 

as the following: 

• Our budget, performance and accountability reports, and strategic plan

• Information about the Farm Credit System, such as financial indicators and quarterly 

call report data

• Guidance provided to System institutions to help them comply with all laws and 

regulations and to meet their congressional mission

• All FOIA annual reports published since 2000, as well as the Chief FOIA Officer report 

to the Department of Justice Pursuant to Attorney General Holder’s FOIA Guidelines

To promote public participation in the rulemaking process, we post notices on our 

homepage under latest updates each time we issue a notice for public comment in the 

Federal Register. We also send out email messages to our web subscribers with links to 

these notices. 

We provide easy access to all pending regulations online and periodically review our 

regulations to identify rules that are obsolete, unnecessary, unjustified, excessively 
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burdensome, or counterproductive, and we seek input from the public in identifying such 

rules. We provide our Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules online with 

information on how we conduct this review and how we encourage members of the public to 

participate in the process.

An important part of transparency is ensuring that information provided to the public is 

easy to understand. To improve the clarity of government writing, Congress passed the 

Plain Writing Act of 2010. We work hard to comply with the act and to ensure that the 

materials we provide to the institutions we regulate and to the public are clear and readerfriendly.

We use a variety of digital tools to reach out to our stakeholders. We have solicited input 

through website customer satisfaction surveys. We also solicit comments on regulatory 

actions through our website, and we publish our digital strategy on our website. 

Providing accurate, timely, and complete information to the public and external 

stakeholders will always be a key priority for us. With the ongoing enhancements of data 

systems at FCA, we are improving the process, format, quality, usefulness, and availability 

of data assets that we provide to the public through both FCA.gov and Data.gov. Central to 

this effort is the work that the agency is doing to enhance CRS data collection and 

dissemination.