FEDERAL AGRICULTURAL MORTGAGE CORP

Farmer Mac was created by federal statute in 1988 in the aftermath of the collapse of the agricultural credit delivery system. Farmer Mac's primary committees of jurisdiction in Congress – the Committee on Agriculture of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry – added requirements for Farmer Mac that had not been included in any of the other statutes establishing other GSEs. Unlike the other existing GSEs at the time, Farmer Mac was required to be regulated by an independent regulator, FCA, which has the authority to regulate Farmer Mac's safety and soundness. The statute creating Farmer Mac expressly requires that eligible Farm & Ranch loans meet minimum credit and appraisal standards that represent sound loans to profitable businesses. The enabling legislation also did not contain a specific federal securities law exemption, which had the effect of requiring Farmer Mac to comply with the periodic reporting requirements of the SEC, including filing annual and quarterly reports on the financial status of Farmer Mac and current reports when there are significant developments. Farmer Mac's charter also requires offerings of securities backed by eligible loans and guaranteed by Farmer Mac to be registered under the Securities Act of 1933 and related regulations (collectively, "Securities Act"), unless an exemption for an offering is available that is not based on Farmer Mac's status as an instrumentality of the United States.

Since Farmer Mac's creation, Congress has amended Farmer Mac's charter five times:

•in 1990 to authorize Farmer Mac to purchase, and guarantee securities backed by, USDA Securities;

•in 1991 to clarify Farmer Mac's authority to purchase its guaranteed securities, establish OSMO as Farmer Mac's financial regulator, and set minimum regulatory capital requirements for Farmer Mac;

•in 1996 to remove certain barriers to and restrictions on Farmer Mac's operations to be more competitive (e.g., allowing Farmer Mac to buy loans directly from lenders and issue guaranteed securities representing 100% of the principal of the purchased loans and modifying capital requirements);

•in 2008 to authorize Farmer Mac to purchase, and guarantee securities backed by, loans or interests in loans by lenders organized as cooperatives to borrowers to finance electrification and telecommunications systems in rural areas; and

•in 2018 to expand the acreage exception to agricultural mortgage loan amount limitation from 1,000 acres to 2,000 acres, subject to FCA's feasibility assessment (which was completed in June 2019), and to repeal obsolete provisions and make technical corrections.

Farmer Mac's authorities and regulatory structure were not revised by legislation adopted in 2008 to regulate other GSEs.