芝加哥，10月8日——美国农业部官员向路透社透露，如今美国农民为维持生产而借贷的金额创下了历史新高。不过，非传统贷款渠道及供应商信贷的兴起，使得联邦政府目前对农业债务的统计与监测出现了疏漏。
CHICAGO, Oct 8 - American farmers are borrowing more money than ever before to operate — but the rise in non-traditional and vendor credit has created some gaps in the federal government's current ability to measure and track farm debt, US Department of Agriculture officials told Reuters.
当前，美国农业领域正承受着日益沉重的财务压力。多年来，农产品价格持续走低且投入成本居高不下，导致农民的利润空间不断被压缩。近期，由于美国与中国等主要农产品进口国之间的贸易摩擦导致出口市场受阻，加之美以两国与伊朗的冲突推高了化肥与燃料价格，农民们更是举步维艰。
Financial pressure is mounting across farm country, where growers have already faced years of tight margins due to slumping prices and high input costs. More recently, farmers have struggled with disruptions to export markets from Washington's trade fights with top buyers including China, while the US-Israeli war with Iran has driven up the cost of fertilizer and fuel.
随着申请破产的农场数量不断增多，部分银行开始收紧信贷政策，迫使农民转向其他渠道融资。据美国农业部最新估算，经通胀因素调整后，美国农业债务总额自2000年以来已增长逾一倍，从约3000亿美元攀升至今年的6050亿美元，创下历史最高纪录。
As farm bankruptcy filings have climbed some banks have tightened credit, prompting growers to seek money elsewhere. Inflation-adjusted US farm debt has more than doubled since 2000, rising from about $300 billion to more than $605 billion this year, a record, according to the latest USDA estimates.
然而路透社调查发现，这一数据可能并未真实反映农民的负债规模。如今，越来越多的农民选择向供应商、农业合作社、农业机械制造商、金融科技企业以及其他非传统贷款机构借款，而这些机构的借贷情况较难被政府全面掌握。
But that figure may understate how much farmers owe, Reuters found. Farmers are increasingly borrowing from suppliers, farmer cooperatives, equipment manufacturers, financial technology firms and other nontraditional lenders that are more difficult for the government to comprehensively measure.
美国农业部官员表示，该部门正着手开展相关研究项目，旨在更准确地追踪此类债务规模，并探究农业领域的财务压力是否会对整体经济产生影响。
The USDA is launching research projects to better track that debt, and to understand whether financial stress in agriculture could be affecting the broader economy, officials said.
“如今出现了许多新的贷款机构，我们必须设法获取相关数据，”美国农业部经济研究局代理副局长杰弗里·霍普金斯对路透社说道。
“There are new lenders popping up and we need to find ways to access that data,” Jeffrey Hopkins, acting assistant administrator at USDA's Economic Research Service, told Reuters.
目前正参与美国农业部非传统农业贷款机构研究项目的堪萨斯州立大学农业金融学教授珍妮·伊夫特估计，被归类在“个人及其他”类别下的农业债务规模，实际数值可能是官方统计数据的两到三倍。据美国农业部预测，2025年这一类别下的债务总额将达到450亿美元。
Jenny Ifft, a Kansas State University agricultural finance professor currently working on a research project with USDA studying non-traditional farm lenders, estimates there could be two to three times as much debt as what USDA reports in its "individual and others" category, which the agency pegged at $45 billion in 2025.
提供此类供应商信贷的机构包括总部位于明尼苏达州的乳制品企业兰德奥莱克斯——这家公司是美国最大的农业合作社之一，专门为农户提供信贷额度。该公司首席执行官贝丝·福特周二在纽约经济俱乐部上透露，其融资业务规模已从去年秋季约1亿美元的承诺贷款额（这些贷款或信贷额度通常用于帮助农户支付运营成本）增长至2027作物年度的10亿美元以上。
Such suppliers of vendor credit include Minnesota-based dairy company Land O’Lakes, one of the largest US agricultural cooperatives, which offers credit lines for farmers. Its financing arm has grown from roughly $100 million last fall in committed loans, or lines of credit typically issued to help producers cover operating costs, to more than $1 billion for crop year 2027, Chief Executive Beth Ford said on Tuesday at the Economic Club of New York.
霍普金斯介绍称，为收集供应商信贷相关数据，美国农业部正在将农户调查结果与农业部农场服务局的贷款记录进行交叉比对，同时还开展相关研究以评估非传统信贷市场的规模。该部门预计在两年内获得研究结果。
To gather vendor credit data, USDA is cross-checking farmer surveys against USDA Farm Service Agency loan records and funding research examining the size of the non-traditional lending market, among other efforts, Hopkins said. The agency hopes for results within two years.
农业经济咨询机构Meridian Agribusiness Advisors的合伙人韦斯利·戴维斯指出，在刚刚过去的种植季，约半数美国商业农场依靠供应商或非传统贷款机构来支付运营开支，这一比例较上一年度提升了约10%。
This past season, roughly half of all US commercial farms relied on vendor or non-traditional lenders to cover their operational expenses, up about 10% from a year earlier, said Wesley Davis, a partner at Meridian Agribusiness Advisors, an agricultural economics firm.
霍普金斯表示，正因如此，美国农业部正在研究“是否存在可能对整体经济产生溢出效应的领域”。他举例提到2007年至2010年的次贷危机，那次危机曾对整个经济造成连锁影响；当时由于相关数据有限，很难区分正常债务与问题债务。
As a result, the USDA is looking at “whether there are potential areas that could have spillover effects to the rest of the economy,” Hopkins said. He pointed to past periods, such as the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2010, which rippled through the broader economy, and limited data made it difficult to distinguish healthy from troubled debt.
从历史来看，美国农业部一直依据各银行、农场信贷机构及其他贷款机构向监管机构上报的数据来统计农业债务。至于供应商信贷的测算，该部门通常采用“农业资源管理调查”——这是一份长达约24页的农户问卷；据美国农业部数据，该问卷的回复率已从2009年的约68%降至2025年的近33%。
Historically, USDA measures farm debt from data that banks, Farm Credit institutions and other lenders report to regulators. To measure vendor credit, it typically uses its Agricultural Resource Management Survey, a roughly 24-page producer questionnaire, where response rates have fallen from about 68% in 2009 to nearly 33% in 2025, according to USDA data.
在路透社采访的52位以上、分布于美国中西部和南部七个州的规模化种植户中，绝大多数人拥有7到10条独立的信贷额度。有些人甚至拥有30多条信贷额度。爱荷华州的一户农户称自己拥有42条信贷额度，这主要是因为农机经销商要求农户每次购买或租赁新设备时都必须单独申请信贷额度。
Of the more than 52 commercial-sized row-crop farmers Reuters interviewed across seven Midwestern and Southern states, the majority maintained between 7 and 10 separate lines of credit. Some had more than 30. One family in Iowa said it had 42, largely because equipment dealers often required separate credit lines each time they bought or leased a new piece of machinery.
此前的研究已发现，美国农业部对农机相关债务的统计数据可能存在严重低估的情况。
Previous research has found evidence that the USDA can significantly undercount equipment debt.
2024年，堪萨斯州立大学、美国农业部经济研究局以及美国国家信用合作社管理局联合开展了一项经过同行评审的研究。该研究分析了2001年至2019年间14个农业大州中超过440万笔农机相关抵押债务情况，结果显示：非传统贷款机构发放的农机债务规模最高可达美国农业部统计数据的四倍之多。
A 2024 peer-reviewed study from Kansas State University, USDA's Economic Research Service and the National Credit Union Administration analyzed more than 4.4 million equipment liens across 14 farm states from 2001 through 2019. They found that equipment debt issued by non-traditional lenders was as much as four times larger than USDA data showed.
该研究的作者之一伊夫特指出：“对于那些为资金最紧张的农户提供服务的贷款机构而言，其债务规模及农户的财务压力状况均未被上报，在此情况下，贷款机构、政策制定者、监管人员及其他关键利益相关方又该如何准确评估相关数据呢？”
"How can lenders, policymakers, regulators and key stakeholders accurately assess debt volumes and farm financial stress when neither is reported for many lenders that serve the most stressed borrowers?" said Ifft, one of the authors.
霍普金斯表示，部分供应商融资情况已被纳入美国农业部正在分析的联邦统计数据中。他还称，在农户看来属于供应商融资的某些贷款，实际上是由农业信贷体系或商业银行发放的，而这些机构会按规定向监管机构上报此类债务信息。
Some vendor financing is captured in federal data USDA already analyzes, Hopkins said. Some loans that appear to farmers to be vendor-financed are actually credit issued by the Farm Credit System or commercial banks that report such debts to regulators, he said.
戴维斯指出，提供信贷服务的供应商和零售商能够帮助客户购买所需产品。不过这些企业自身也可能承担额外风险，尤其是当所提供的信贷缺乏任何资产作为债务担保时。
Suppliers and retailers that offer credit help customers to buy their products, Davis said. But those businesses also could be taking on additional risk themselves, particularly if the credit they offer has no assets securing such debts.
“这样一来，面临风险的就不只是农户本身，整个农业商业生态系统都可能陷入财务困境，”他说道。
"The risk we could see then is not just to the farmers themselves, but financial distress to the broader agribusiness ecosystem," he said.