Agri Farm and Ranch Loans in Texas: Rates, Programs, Events

Reviewed September 2026 against USDA NASS Quick Stats and USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) reporting.

Try it: Estimated payment: — →

Texas carried 231,000 farms across 125,000,000 acres in 2024, per USDA NASS, and USDA’s Farm Service Agency obligated $6.74 billion in farm loans nationally in FY 2025 at an average size of $243,000. If you searched for a farm and ranch loan in Texas, or you’re trying to find an agri farm and ranch event worth the drive, this page gives you the loan numbers, the state’s production data, and a straight answer on where Texas agriculture events actually happen — including the one this page used to be about.

Table of Contents

• Texas Farm and Ranch Loan Data: What USDA FSA Actually Reports
• Farm Loan Payment Calculator
• Texas Agriculture by the Numbers
• Where Texas Farm and Ranch Loans Come From
• Agricultural Technology Events and Conferences Near Houston
• The Abilene Expo: What’s Still True
• Where Technology Fits a Financed Operation
• FAQ
• Try it: Estimated payment: —

Texas Farm and Ranch Loan Data: What USDA FSA Actually Reports

Searches for “ranch loan Texas,” “farm and ranch loans Texas,” “Texas ranch loan,” and “Texas farm and ranch loans” are usually looking for a lender or a rate. Here is what’s publicly reported and where to verify it yourself.

USDA’s Farm Service Agency runs the two loan programs most Texas producers encounter: direct loans (funded and serviced by FSA itself) and guaranteed loans (made by a commercial bank, Farm Credit association, or other lender, with FSA guaranteeing a portion against default). The Texas FSA state office reports a direct farm loan portfolio of $673.1 million and a guaranteed farm loan portfolio of $530.5 million currently outstanding, according to the USDA FSA Texas state office. That’s a combined $1.2 billion in FSA-backed farm and ranch lending exposure in the state — direct evidence that “farm and ranch loans Texas” is a real, active market, not a dead search term.

Nationally, FSA obligated $6.74 billion in total farm loans in FY 2025, and 15,552 of those loans — $3.53 billion — went to beginning farmers, according to USDA FSA’s farm loan program reporting. The average FSA loan size nationally was $243,000 in FY 2025. FSA does not publish a Texas-only breakdown of beginning farmer loan counts or dollars in this dataset — if you need that figure, the Texas FSA state office (above) or your local county FSA office can pull it for your specific loan category.

On rate: FSA’s Commodity Loan interest rate was 5.250% in January 2025, per USDA’s January 2025 lending rate announcement. FSA operating and ownership loan rates are announced separately and were not confirmed in this research pass — FSA publishes a new rate announcement on or near the first business day of every month at fsa.usda.gov/news-events/news. Rates move monthly; treat any rate you read here as a January 2025 reference point, not today’s number, and check that page before you budget a loan.

Neither this article nor Farmonaut originates, brokers, or services farm loans. FSA direct and guaranteed loan applications go through your local Texas FSA county office; guaranteed loans specifically require a participating commercial lender or Farm Credit association as the originator, with FSA guaranteeing part of the balance.

Farm Loan Payment Calculator

Use the figures above — or your own quote — to estimate a monthly payment on a farm or ranch loan before you apply.

Assumptions: fixed rate for the full term, monthly compounding, no fees, insurance, or balloon payments included. This is a planning estimate only, not a loan quote — actual FSA and commercial farm loan terms vary by collateral, credit history, and loan category. Confirm real terms with your lender or local FSA office before relying on this figure.

Texas Agriculture by the Numbers

Loan sizing only makes sense against what the collateral produces. USDA NASS’s 2024 Texas overview puts the state’s farm count at 231,000 operations working 125,000,000 acres, for an average farm size of 541 acres — among the largest average holdings of any state, reflecting Texas’s mix of large-acreage ranching operations alongside row-crop farms.

By commodity value, 2024 Texas production broke down as follows, per USDA NASS’s Texas state overview:

Cattle drive the “ranch” half of “farm and ranch” in Texas: at 12.1 million head in 2024, Texas holds the largest cattle inventory of any state, which is also the collateral base behind most of the state’s ranch-specific loan volume. Milk, at $3.95 billion, was the single largest commodity by value — ahead of the row crops usually associated with Texas agriculture. NASS republishes this overview annually and updates crop-specific figures throughout the growing season via USDA’s QuickStats database, so a reader checking this page a year out should pull the current-year state overview rather than treat 2024 as fixed.

Where Texas Farm and Ranch Loans Come From

“Ranch loan Texas” searches typically land on one of three lender types. Here’s how they differ structurally — not by rate, since rates move too often to quote as current:

The FSA Commodity Loan interest rate — a short-term, crop-specific loan category distinct from farm ownership or operating loans — stood at 5.250% as of the January 2025 USDA rate announcement. Operating and ownership loan rates, which are what most “farm and ranch loan” searches actually want, are published in the same monthly release but weren’t captured in this research pass. Check the current month’s announcement at fsa.usda.gov/news-events/news before comparing any lender’s quote against the FSA baseline.

Agricultural Technology Events and Conferences Near Houston

If you searched for agricultural technology conferences near Houston over the coming year, the honest answer is that no dedicated “Houston AgTech Expo” with a confirmed annual date turned up in this research pass. The Fertilizer Institute holds an Agronomy Conference that has drawn Texas venues in some years, but a confirmed date and location for the coming year was not verified here — check The Fertilizer Institute‘s own event calendar directly rather than relying on a secondhand date.

The event most reliably on the calendar near Houston is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which runs a substantial commercial trade show floor alongside its rodeo and livestock competitions, historically in late February through March; its next scheduled run is March 2027 per public event listings, though you should confirm exact dates on the event’s own site closer to the time, since show dates shift year to year. For agtech specifically — precision ag, farm management software, satellite monitoring vendors — trade shows attached to major livestock and commodity events (Houston, San Antonio Stock Show, Fort Worth Stock Show) tend to carry a growing technology-vendor presence even when “agtech” isn’t in the event name, since Texas’s operation sizes (541-acre average, per NASS) make precision tools economically relevant at scale.

If you’re trying to justify travel time to an event for agricultural technology specifically, the more efficient approach is usually to check a target vendor’s own presence calendar (many post upcoming trade show appearances on their site) rather than searching for a standalone “agtech conference Houston” that may not exist as a fixed annual fixture.

The Abilene Expo: What’s Still True

“The Texas Farm Ranch & Wildlife Expo in Abilene has run for 26 years, showcasing agricultural innovations since 1999.”

This page originally covered the Texas Farm Ranch & Wildlife Expo (TFRWE) in Abilene, a two-day event co-hosted by the Taylor County AgriLife Extension Service and the Abilene Chamber of Commerce at the Taylor Telecom Arena. It’s a genuine, long-running Texas agriculture event — hundreds of exhibitor booths, an Agriculture Legacy Luncheon honoring the Agriculture Family of the Year, a Business After Hours networking event, and educational seminars on sustainable farming and precision agriculture. Specific dates move year to year; confirm the current schedule directly with the organizers (contact: Ashley Knowlton, 325-677-7241) rather than relying on a past year’s dates.

The expo’s format has stayed consistent across recent years: exhibitor booths covering everything from tractors to irrigation systems (see recent agricultural advances), a dedicated business expo section connecting Abilene-area companies with the agricultural community, and seminar tracks on emerging farm innovations, financial management, and climate adaptation. If you’re weighing whether to attend, the durable value is the same each year: direct access to Texas AgriLife extension staff, regional exhibitors you won’t find at a national trade show, and the Legacy Luncheon’s networking with established Texas farming families.

For “innovative farm and ranch” searches specifically: the innovation on display at TFRWE and similar Texas expos in recent cycles has trended toward smart farming technology, sustainability tooling (water conservation, soil health, renewable energy on-farm), and AI-driven crop management — alongside the traditional equipment and livestock categories that have always anchored these shows.

What a Texas Expo Floor Typically Covers

Where Technology Fits a Financed Operation

When you’ve taken on $673.1 million worth of direct FSA debt collectively (the Texas portfolio total, not a per-farm figure) or a guaranteed loan through a commercial lender, the return on every acre matters more, not less. This is the practical link between loan financing and the precision agriculture technology increasingly featured at Texas expos: tools that let a producer catch a stand failure, an irrigation problem, or a pest outbreak early protect the revenue that services the loan.

Farmonaut’s platform combines satellite imagery, AI, and machine learning to give operations real-time visibility into crop health and soil moisture across every field — the kind of monitoring that matters most when acreage is large and margins are financed. Texas’s 541-acre average farm size (more than triple the roughly 180-acre US average NASS reports for many other states) makes per-field monitoring at scale a genuine operational need rather than a novelty.

• Web App:
• Android App:
• iOS App:

Developers integrating satellite and weather data directly can use Farmonaut’s API and API Developer Docs. The same satellite-and-AI approach is scaling elsewhere too — see how it applies to agriculture companies and machinery investment in South Africa — but the Texas relevance is direct: large financed acreage plus thin per-acre margins is exactly the scenario where early detection pays for the loan payment.

Precision Tools Showing Up on Texas Expo Floors

• Satellite-Based Crop Monitoring: Real-time crop health and soil condition data without a field visit.
• AI and Machine Learning in Agriculture: Predictive analytics for yield, pest pressure, and resource allocation.
• IoT sensors: Connected soil moisture and weather stations for operational data.
• Drone Technology: Spraying, scouting, and mapping large acreage efficiently.
• Blockchain in Agriculture: Traceability across the supply chain, increasingly requested by buyers.

Adjacent practices worth a look for anyone financing new ground: chemical-free soil management for input-cost reduction, and controlled-environment and vertical farming for producers diversifying beyond row crops and cattle.

Earn With Farmonaut: Join our Affiliate Program

Earn 20% recurring commission with Farmonaut’s affiliate program by sharing your promo code and helping farmers save 10%. Onboard 10 Elite farmers monthly to earn a minimum of $148,000 annually — start now and grow your income!

FAQ

Q: How big is a typical farm and ranch loan in Texas?
A: There’s no single “typical” figure published for Texas specifically, but the national FSA average across all loan types was $243,000 in FY 2025, per USDA FSA. Texas’s own FSA portfolio totals $673.1 million in direct loans and $530.5 million in guaranteed loans outstanding — divide those by however many active loans FSA reports for the state (not published in this dataset) to get a state-specific average, or ask your local FSA office directly.

Q: What’s the current interest rate on a Texas farm or ranch loan?
A: FSA’s Commodity Loan rate was 5.250% as of the January 2025 announcement. Rates are republished monthly at fsa.usda.gov/news-events/news — a rate from any single month should not be treated as current more than a few weeks later.

Q: Where do I actually apply for an FSA farm loan in Texas?
A: Through your local Texas FSA county office; the state office directory is linked above. Guaranteed loans require a participating commercial lender or Farm Credit association to originate the loan, with FSA guaranteeing part of the balance.

Q: Is there a major agricultural technology conference near Houston?
A: No single confirmed annual “Houston agtech expo” was identified in current research. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo carries a large trade show floor and is scheduled for March 2027; check the event’s own site for confirmed dates. For agtech specifically, checking individual vendors’ event calendars is more reliable than searching for a fixed conference name.

Q: When and where is the Texas Farm Ranch & Wildlife Expo?
A: At the Taylor Telecom Arena in Abilene, Texas, typically in late February; confirm current dates with organizer Ashley Knowlton (325-677-7241), since exact dates shift year to year.

Q: How many farms does Texas have, and how large are they on average?
A: 231,000 farms across 125,000,000 acres in 2024, averaging 541 acres per farm, per USDA NASS.

For year-over-year Texas agriculture data, USDA NASS republishes its Texas state overview annually and its comprehensive Annual Statistical Bulletin covers the full commodity breakdown in more detail than this page can. Pull the current-year edition before citing any figure above as still accurate.