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Show Big Savings To Farmers Reported Through FSA Equipment Loans Costs of heavy farm machinery and other equipment needed for efficient operation have been cut as much as 75 per cent by western small farmers taking part in the Farm Security administration's group loan program, it was learned learn-ed yesterday from the local FSA office for Washington and Kane counties, Utah; Clark and Lincoln I counties, Nev. and the Arizona Strip. Willis R. Dunkley, in charge , of this district office, said that money lent by this "community and cooperative service" program enables groups of from two to 10 or more low-income farmers (Continued on page four) FSA Group Loans i Continued from first pae) ii purch.'i-e 1: iri'jrs, traitor e'juiprner'.t , con:n:r-s. en-:! t;-euM.-rs puri-rie.l ,.:.-s ur.d n::t;: U'hef li es. K.iCM 'iIA!C'" Of machine is num-l and operated jointly by mt.-n.rVrs of the cooperating co-operating group, lor their common benefit. According to the Farm Security supervisor, a rapid expansion of this program in L'tah. California, Arizona and Nevada shows that farmers in the lower income brackets realize they must pool their efforts and resources in order to compete successfully with large-scale farms which are heavily mechanized and well financed. fi-nanced. "Only in this way can they pare down crippling outlays of capital and overhead expense, or avoid going deeper into debt to buy the equipment they must have to succeed", he declared. "When a -10 acre farmer buys a 500 acre tractor, he pays plenty for it right at the start. Then he goes on paying overhead for the use he can never get out of it on his limited acreage. The same goes , for the man who buys a $200 bull to service a herd of five or 10 cows. "It is very different when farmers far-mers get together to buy and use that same efficient tractor or purebred pure-bred bull, sharing the cost and getting the most out of their investment in-vestment by operating at capacity". capa-city". Mr. Dunkley said that nearly 1,000 community and cooperative service groups have been set up in the four western states of Region Nine. Almost 10,000 farmers far-mers are using the machinery, sires and other facilities operated by these groups. Farm Security surveys show that more than 7,000 of the cooperative services exist in the United States as a whole. Members have obtained many types of farm machinery and services for processing, marketing mar-keting and livestock improvement at an average cost to each farmer of less than $35. Community and cooperative service loans are made by FSA only to small farmers unable to get adequate credit elsewhere. However, non-borrowing farmers, who are financially able may subscribe sub-scribe their proportionate share in cash to become members of a cooperating group, it its service ser-vice is not being used to capacity by borrowing members. According to Mr. Dunkley there are now 406 farmers in counites supervised by the local FSA office who have individual and group rehabilitation loans from the Farm Security administration. The co-op plan is intended to supplement supple-ment and round out the FSA rural rehabilitation program. |