The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac) is a stockholder-owned, federally chartered corporation that combines private capital and public sponsorship to serve a public purpose. Farmer Mac was created to establish a secondary market for agricultural real estate and rural housing mortgage loans. This secondary market was designed to increase the availability of long-term credit at stable interest rates to America�s rural communities, farmers, ranchers and rural homeowners and to provide those borrowers with the benefits of capital markets pricing and product innovation. It conducts these activities through three programs: Farmer Mac I, Farmer Mac II and Rural Utilities. As of December 31, 2011, the total outstanding amount of the eligible loans included in all of Farmer Mac�s programs was $11.9 billion. The loans eligible for the Farmer Mac secondary market include mortgage loans secured by liens on agricultural real estate and rural housing.