During the month of April, Carolina Farm Credit held customer appreciation events in each of our 37 service centers. This is one of the highlights of our year, when we take time to stop, say thank you and show appreciation to you, our customers, for doing business with Carolina Farm Credit. The events were well attended and we trust that each customer that attended enjoyed the food, fellowship, and time spent with our staff and other customers. For me personally, it was great to see many of our customers that quite frankly, I just don’t get to visit with often enough. Of course, the distribution of our patronage refund checks is a big drawing card for these events. We were pleased to be able to pay approximately $15.5 million in patronage to our customers this spring. Of that amount, we distributed approximately $4.6 million in cash during our spring customer appreciation events. As you know, the return of our profits to our customers through our patronage program is what sets us apart from other lenders in our area. The Board recently approved the association re-establishing customer appreciation events in the fall. We are already looking forward to seeing you again this fall and distributing more checks.

On a legislative front, there has been much talk of financial regulatory reform in Washington since the meltdown on Wall Street in the fall of 2008 and the ensuing aftermath with its effect on the banking industry. Recently, the Senate passed its version of regulatory reform legislation to go along with the House bill that was passed at the end of last year. The bill now goes to a House-Senate Conference Committee, which will begin meetings to work out the differences between the two bills. Farm Credit’s focus will be to influence the final structure of the bill where possible. We will work to ensure that the system is not adversely impacted as a result of difficulties experienced by other financial institutions and not shared by the Farm Credit System. Our efforts will focus on maintaining language in the House and Senate bills which supports FCA as the system’s regulator. We are working to ensure new legislature does not have an adverse affect on our customers. Additionally, the system will support provisions in the House bill that could, if removed, increase the cost of funding for system borrowers. As always, we are making every effort to support agriculture and rural America, both locally by making loans in our chartered territory, and in our nation’s capital by supporting legislation that is positive for agriculture, rural America and the Farm Credit System.

Thank you again for your continued use of Carolina Farm Credit’s products and services. We look forward to continuing to serve your credit and financial services needs in the future. See you in your office in the fall!