Wichita ? Bolstered by high cattle prices and bountiful crops last season, the nation’s farmers have paid off farm loans at levels not seen in years, the Farm Service Agency said Tuesday.

Across the country, farm loan delinquency rates fell to 12.4 percent in February, compared with 16 percent for the same month in 2005.

In Kansas, delinquency rates plunged to their lowest levels in at least a decade.

The number of Kansas farmers behind on their loans through the agency fell to 8.9 percent in February, said Lee Hartford, farm loan specialist at the agency. That is down from 11.6 percent a month earlier.

“Cattle prices have really helped a lot of operations stay afloat the last few years,” Hartford said. “We have some areas where a lot of loans are tied to livestock enterprises. That has probably been one of the keys.”

February is often seen as a bellwether month for the farm economy because it is typically the first month when delinquencies on operating loans, most of which come due in January, show up in the statistics.

“You wouldn’t think times are that great. A lot of cash flows we look at are fairly tight,” Hartford said. “The government payments are one of the things that keeps operations’ cash flowing that wouldn’t otherwise.”

The Farm Service Agency, for years known as the lender of last resort, is the largest farm lender in Kansas, where it has 2,796 borrowers.

Arlyn Stiebe, the agency’s farm loan chief in Kansas, said the high costs of farm inputs, such as fertilizer and fuel, are showing up in the operating loans the agency is making this season.

“We are getting a lot of loan requests from new people we haven’t seen before – and also a large number of people refinancing carry-over operating expenses from last year,” Stiebe said.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City found agricultural credit conditions in the 10th District rebounded in the fourth quarter of 2005 from posthurricane levels and stabilized. The area surveyed encompasses Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, the northern half of New Mexico and the western third of Missouri.

While those states were not directly affected by the hurricanes, bankers had been concerned in the previous quarter about high fuel prices after the hurricanes. As fuel prices decreased in the fourth quarter, so did their uncertainty, said Nancy Novack, associate economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Farmland values grew 9.2 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same time a year ago. While bankers in all states in the district reported gains in farmland values, growth was especially strong in Missouri.