Marketing assistance loans provide producers interim financing at harvest time to meet cash flow needs without having to sell their commodities when market prices are typically at harvest-time lows. Allowing producers to store production at harvest facilitates more orderly marketing of commodities throughout the year.

Marketing assistance loans for covered commodities are non-recourse because the commodity is pledged as loan collateral and producers have the option of delivering the pledged collateral to the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) as full payment for the loan at maturity. Market loan repayment provisions specify, under certain circumstances, that producers may repay loans at less than principal plus accrued interest and other charges. Alternatively, loan deficiency payment (LDP) provisions specify that, in lieu of securing a loan, producers may be eligible for an LDP. For ELS cotton, LDP provisions do not apply and marketing assistance loans must be repaid at the loan rate plus interest.

A producer who is eligible to obtain a loan, but who agrees to forgo the loan, may obtain an LDP. The LDP rate equals the amount by which the applicable loan rate where the commodity is stored exceeds the alternative loan repayment rate for the respective commodity. The LDP equals the LDP rate times the quantity of the commodity for which the LDP is requested. Table 2 provides an example of how corn marketing loan gains and LDPs are calculated.