the federal agricultural mortgage corporation, commonly known as farmer mac, is a stockholder-owned, government sponsored enterprise or "gse" created by congress to improve the availability of long-term credit for america's farmers, ranchers, rural homeowners, businesses and communities. farmer mac accomplishes this public policy mission by providing a secondary market for qualified agricultural mortgage loans, rural housing mortgage loans, rural utilities loans (to cooperative borrowers made by cooperative lenders) and the guaranteed portions of agricultural and rural development loans guaranteed by the u.s. department of agriculture. the farmer mac secondary market provides liquidity and lending capacity to lenders by: - purchasing newly originated and existing eligible loans directly from lenders; - exchanging loan-backed securities guaranteed by farmer mac ("farmer mac guaranteed securities") for eligible loans that back those securities in "swap" transactions; - issuing long-