First Pioneer Farm Credit, ACA, the Northeast’s largest agricultural lending cooperative, recently paid a record $22.3 million in patronage dividends to its customers.  This is the financial cooperative’s thirteenth consecutive annual patronage payment. Download press_release_fp_patronage_2008.doc

More than 7,000 farms and agribusinesses across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island received patronage dividend checks in the mail.  The dividend is paid as 60 percent cash and 40 percent as allocated retained equity (ARE) in the cooperative.
As owners of a successful cooperative, First Pioneer’s customers have the opportunity to financially share in that success through patronage dividends.  Since the patronage program was first adopted, First Pioneer customers have earned a cumulative $178 million from ownership of their cooperative.

Board Chairman J. Scott Markham, of Constableville, NY, explains, “First Pioneer’s interest rates are very competitive with other lenders.  If we keep credit quality sound and operate efficiently, then we have net earnings.  We keep a portion of those earnings to capitalize our business and we return the rest to stockholders as patronage dividends.”