SPOKANE — Northwest Farm Credit Services, the Northwest’s leading agricultural lending cooperative, announced 2016 first quarter earnings of $58.4 million.

That is down nearly $5 million from the $63.1 million earned for the same quarter of 2015. The decrease in earnings was due to significant loan recoveries in 2015,according to President and CEO Phil DiPofi. Total capital increased 1.7 percent during the quarter to $2.1 billion.

“Our association’s strong financial performance continues in 2016,” DiPofi said. “Despite lower commodity prices, our customers remain well positioned to withstand the current market environment.”

DiPofi noted that staff is closely monitoring economic and weather conditions, commodity inventories and the global trade situation – all of which impact customer-members throughout the Northwest.

As a cooperative, Northwest FCS returns a share of its net earnings to customer-members in the form of patronage dividends. The Northwest FCS board recently approved an increase in patronage from 0.75 percent to 1.0 percent of a customer’s eligible average daily loan balance.

During the first quarter of 2016, a record $91.9 million was returned to eligible customer-members in the form of cash patronage, based on the association’s strong financial performance in 2015 and the amount of a customer’s business with the association.