Farm Credit Bank of Texas, along with 20 rural lending cooperatives in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Mexico, returned $133.7 million, or 55 percent of its earnings, to its customers.

Lenders within the Tenth Farm Credit District provide financing to farmers, ranchers, agribusiness firms, rural homeowners and rural landowners. The Tenth Farm Credit District is part of the national Farm Credit System, the country's oldest and largest source of rural financing.

These lending institutions distributed $124.8 million to customers in 2006 and $56.4 million in 2005.

Tenth District lenders' net income totaled $242.5 million in 2007, compared with $240.1 million in 2006. Net interest income, the money generated off the interest paid on loans, increased to $432.4 million in 2007, compared to $386.2 million the previous year.

Gross loans totaled $15.11 billion at Dec. 31, 2007, a 17 percent increase from the $12.9 billion loan volume reported at year-end 2006. At the same time, the credit quality of the district's portfolio remained strong, with 98.8 percent of the loan volume in good standing at year end.

Farm Credit Bank of Texas, the funding bank for the 20 rural financing cooperatives, also reported strong year-end results. Farm Credit Bank of Texas posted net income of $74 million for 2007, which was up 13.9 percent from the $65 million reported in 2006. The bank's loan portfolio as of Dec. 31, 2007 totaled $10.87 billion, reflecting an 8.1 percent increase from the $10 billion balance a year earlier.

At year-end 2007, Tenth District assets totaled $18 billion, while Farm Credit Bank of Texas assets totaled $13.52 billion.