The Small Business Administration (SBA) has made agricultural and agriculture-related loans since soon after its founding in 1953, although agriculture is a very small part of its focus. At the end of fiscal 1996, $1.3 billion in SBA agricultural and agriculture-related direct and guaranteed loans were outstanding. This accounted for 4.3 percent of all outstanding SBA direct and guaranteed loans on that date. During 1954-96, SBA made 115,327 direct and guaranteed agricultural and agriculture-related loans totaling $7.7 billion with an average loan size of $67,042. These included loans made for (1) crop and livestock production and for (2) agricultural services (soil preparation, crop-related, veterinary, animal services except veterinary, farm labor and management, and landscape and horticultural). The loans were for business uses, with the disaster relief portion composing about three-fifths of the dollar volume. SBA agricultural and agriculture-related lending activity has varied considerably through the years; 79.8 percent of the loans and 61.4 percent of the dollar volume for the 1954-96 period occurred during 1978-81. In 1986, SBA stopped making disaster business loans to farm enterprises for crop or livestock production.