Northwest Farm Credit Services, the Spokane-based agricultural lending cooperative, has reported third-quarter earnings of $75.3 million, an increase of 73 percent compared with $43.6 million in the year-earlier quarter.

The association attributed the increase to moderate loan growth during the past nine months and significantly improved credit quality in that same period. It says those factors prompted the cooperative to reduce its allowance for loan losses by $20 million in the third quarter.

Northwest Farm Credit Services reported earnings for the first nine months of this year of $171 million, up from $145 million for the same period in 2012. During the first three quarters of 2013, total capital increased 8.3 percent to $1.7 billion.

Linda Hendricksen, Farm Credit's senior vice president of marketing, says total loans owned and serviced by the cooperative stood at $11.41 billion as of Sept. 30, up slightly from $11.38 billion a year earlier. Hendricksen says the loan portfolio is up slightly from $11.01 billion at the end of 2012.

She says nonaccrual loans, on which the association isn't collecting interest, dropped to $109 million as of Sept. 30, down from $170 million at the end of 2012 and from $206 million at the end of September 2012.

Phil DiPofi, Northwest Farm Credit Services' president and CEO, says that most segments of Northwest agriculture have experienced good economic and weather conditions.

"The diversity of our loan portfolio and the underlying strength of our agricultural, forestry, and fisheries customers continue to be the foundation for our association's strong financial performance," he says.

Northwest Farm Credit provides more than $11 billion in financing and related services to farmers, ranchers, and others in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Alaska. It is a member of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of borrower-owned lending institutions that provide about $192 billion in loans to rural America.