The federal government plans to write off...

The federal government plans to write off or defer payment on a total of $8.8 billion in debt owed by farmers to the Farmers Home Administration, the agency’s administrator said. “It is true that we are probably writing off upwards of $8 billion to $9 billion over the next couple of years and the agricultural credit act is responsible for a substantial portion of that,” FmHA Administrator Vance Clark told a Senate hearing. The disclosure followed unconfirmed reports last month that the government might write off as much as $7 billion in debt under provisions of a bailout bill for the Farm Credit System that was passed by Congress last year.