The objective of this paper is to explore commercial bank participation in the farm real estate loan market. We do that primarily through a review and analysis of recent bank survey and secondary data. We briefly consider some of the changes in economic conditions (e.g., farm income levels, interest rates and land values) which influence the demand for farm real estate loans. This leads to a consideration of some hypotheses about the importance of competitiveness and customer loyalty at commercial banks in shaping how banks compete. In the subsequent sections we discuss the bank survey results and our analysis of that data from the perspective of bank competitiveness and customer loyalty as explanations for the observed trend in farm real estate market shares.