Ag Services of America Introduces Real Estate Lending; Adds Online Tools for Farmers.

Business Editors

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 18, 2001

Ag Services of America, Inc. (NYSE:ASV) today announced the availability of a long-term, real estate financing option for the first time in the company's 16-year history. Through a partnership with Zions Agricultural Finance, an affiliate of Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION), Ag Services will offer long-term financing through its Field Sales Managers and online at the Powerfarm.com Web site. Loans will be available for farm and ranch land acquisitions, refinancing of existing debt, and to provide for capital expansion.

"Our expertise and focus has always been short-to intermediate-term financing for crop production," stated Brad Schlotfeldt, Senior Executive Officer for Ag Services of America. "This relationship with Zions now allows our Company to fulfill a need many of our existing customers have, while enhancing our one source business model by offering comprehensive credit options to new customers."

Zions Agricultural Finance offers nationwide agricultural mortgage lending and is a division of Zions First National Bank. Established in 1873, Zions Bank is the nation's largest originator of secondary market agricultural real estate mortgage loans.

"Zions Agricultural Finance continues its national leadership in agricultural mortgage lending," states Rick Floyd, Senior Vice President and Manager of Zions Agricultural Finance. "Ag Services of America and Powerfarm.com extend Zions' visibility and offers us additional opportunities to fund competitive real estate loans."

Ag Services of America also announced the addition of new crop production tools to the Powerfarm.com Web site. Users will now have access to calculators that compute economic thresholds for specific pests such as European Corn Borer and Bean Leaf Beetles. Also, recently introduced on the site was a comprehensive weed identification system developed by the University of Illinois in conjunction with the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research. Susan Ratcliffe, coordinator for the University of Illinois Integrated Pest Management Web site stated, "We are pleased to have the opportunity to provide this useful weed identification tool as part of Powerfarm's Valued Partner Program."

Ag Services of America, Inc., which also operates Powerfarm.com, is based in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and is a leading supplier of input financing and agricultural inputs, including seed, chemicals, fertilizer and cash advances to primarily corn and soybean growers in the U.S. Ag Services' one-stop shopping business model includes competitive and flexible financing packages through its AgriFlex Credit(R) program combined with the most comprehensive offering of agricultural inputs from national sources such as Asgrow, Aventis, BASF, Dekalb, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Garst, Monsanto, Pioneer Hi-Bred and Syngenta. The Company also provides ancillary services such as crop insurance and grain marketing programs and operates one of the most comprehensive e-commerce websites in the agriculture industry.

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements. This release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, include the following: general economic conditions within the agricultural industry; competitive factors and pricing pressures; changes in product mix; changes in the seasonality of demand patterns; changes in weather conditions; changes in agricultural regulations; unknown risks; the amount and availability under its asset backed securitization program; and the risks described from time to time in the Company's SEC reports.