Opinion ID: 545560
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The House Report

Text: 43 The House Report sets forth the twofold purpose of the Act. It stated: 44 H.R. 3030 will require Farm Credit System lenders to restructure the loans of financially-stressed farmer-borrowers, in order to help keep farmers on the land and help turn around the condition of stressed System institutions. 45 H.R.Rep. No. 295(I), 100th Cong., 1st Sess. 52 (emphasis added), reprinted in 1987 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 2723. It went on to say: 46 Much of the impetus for H.R. 3030 derives from the continuing depression in agriculture that began in the early 1980's but whose roots originate in the inflationary period in the late 1960's and 1970's. 47 . . . . . 48 H.R. 3030 ... looks to the future--to an agricultural delivery system that not only will have dealt sensitively with today's financially-stressed farm borrowers but one that will be more competitive, more efficient and more responsive to economic realities. 49 Id. at 53-54, reprinted in 1988 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 2725. 50 The Report further states that the highlights of H.R. 3030 include: 51 Providing enhanced borrowers' rights and requiring restructuring rather than foreclosure of certain loans. 52 Id. (emphasis added). 53 In discussing the testimony of the various witnesses to appear before the House committee, the Report states: 54 Dozens of witnesses representing farmer and commodity groups testified before the Committee as to two basic weaknesses in the way many System institutions have dealt with its problems. First, System lenders have been exceedingly reluctant to restructure individual loans on a case-by-case basis; and, second, the tensions and pressures on both borrowers and lenders, brought on by financial distress, have caused collapse of the traditional sense of comity and good will between the System and its borrower/owners. 55 Id. at 62, reprinted in 1988 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 2733. The Report went on to state: 56 Complaints about the rights of System borrowers being abused at both the association and district levels have been like a constant drumbeat in the offices of some Members of Congress for several years. The package of borrower rights adopted in H.R. 3030 reflect a common sense approach which should have been standard operating procedures in a cooperative, borrower-owned lending system. 57 Id. at 64, reprinted in 1988 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 2735.