Latest Agribusiness Headlines
All the headlines from our Agribusiness Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Missouri High Court Upholds Agricultural Liability Limit in Hog Farm Case
Apr 16 2015 // Missouri’s highest court has upheld limits to the damages property owners can recover in nuisance lawsuits against agricultural operations. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in favor of a hog farm in a case where...
Parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho Declared Drought Disaster
Apr 16 2015 // The U.S. Agriculture Department has declared two northeast Nevada counties natural disaster areas due to the lingering drought with an emergency order that also makes emergency low-interest loans available to farmers,...
Crop Insurance Uncertainty Hindering Arkansas Farmers
Apr 14 2015 // Lower commodity prices and uncertainties about new federal crop insurance programs are making it tougher for Arkansas row crop farmers to secure operating loans. Tight cash flow has already struck some growers as the...
Floods & Drought Amid Climate Change Cost Global Economy Billions: Oxford
Apr 14 2015 // A new report on water insecurity says floods and drought amid climate change and a lack of investment in reliable water supplies is weighing on the global economy by tens of billions of dollars a year. “Water is...
Missouri Bills Include Insurance Subsidies for Dairy, Agriculture
Apr 13 2015 // Gov. Jay Nixon has signed bills aimed at boosting Missouri’s dairy and $12.5 billion-a-year agriculture industries through insurance subsidies, scholarships, eased restrictions during parts of the year and other...
XL, Cobalt Underwriting Launch Shariah-Compliant Equine Product at Lloyd’s
Apr 13 2015 // XL Group and Cobalt Underwriting have launched the first Shariah-compliant product to be available through Lloyd’s of London. The cover is an equine product, which responds to named perils, mortality, theft,...
Windstorm Niklas Was Costliest Non-U.S. Event in Q1 2015: Impact Forecasting
Apr 9 2015 // Impact Forecasting, Aon Benfield’s catastrophe model development team, released the latest edition of its monthly Global Catastrophe Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster events that occurred worldwide...
Ratings of Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Co. of Iowa Downgraded
Apr 8 2015 // A.M. Best has downgraded the financial strength rating to A- (Excellent) from A (Excellent) and the issuer credit rating to “a-“from “a” of Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Iowa (FMH),...
Top 5 Findings on the Environmental Harms of Crop Insurance Subsidies
Apr 7 2015 // We at R Street do a lot of warning that our nation’s misguided crop insurance supports, in combination with the disastrous Renewable Fuel Standard, are distorting land and food markets, wreaking environmental havoc...
AIR Estimates Cyclone Niklas Insured Losses from $1.09 to $2+ Billion
Apr 7 2015 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimates that insured losses from Extratropical Cyclone Niklas will range between €1.0 billion and €1.9 billion [$1.09 to $2.07 billion], with the majority of losses in...
Mandatory Water Restrictions Ordered by California Governor
Apr 2 2015 // California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered officials Wednesday to impose statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time in history as surveyors found the lowest snow level in the Sierra Nevada snowpack in 65 years of...
Iowa’s Farmers Mutual Hail, John Deere Insurance Close Acquisition
Apr 1 2015 // Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Iowa (FMH) announced its acquisition of Illinois-based John Deere Insurance Company and John Deere Risk Protection Inc. is complete Headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, FMH has...
Fireman’s Fund to Pay $44M to Settle Crop Insurance Fraud Charges
Mar 23 2015 // Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. has agreed to pay $44 million to settle allegations under the False Claims Act that it knowingly issued insurance policies that were ineligible under the U.S. Department of...
A.M. Best Downgrades South Carolina Farm Bureau Group Members
Mar 23 2015 // A.M. Best has downgraded the financial strength rating to B+ (Good) from B++ (Good) and the issuer credit ratings to “bbb-” from “bbb” of South Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. and Palmetto...
Texas Commissioner Files Revised Farmers Insurance Refund Settlement
Mar 23 2015 // On the heels of a $325.5 million dollar refund agreement with the state’s largest homeowners insurer, State Farm Lloyds, Texas Department of Insurance Commissioner David Mattax filed a revised settlement with the...
Illinois County Fairs Losing State Money for Insurance, Other Costs
Mar 17 2015 // County fairs across Illinois are reassessing their finances as the state reduces its support in a cost-saving measure. A recent letter from Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration instructed county fairs to...
Kentucky Lawmakers Tackle Details of $100M Tobacco Settlement
Mar 13 2015 // State lawmakers are trying to figure out how to enforce the terms of a settlement reached with the nation’s largest tobacco companies. What’s at stake: About $100 million in state revenue every year that pays...
Insurance Fraud Leads to Prison Sentence for North Dakota Farmers
Mar 11 2015 // Two North Dakota brothers have been sentenced to prison time and ordered to pay back more than $900,000 for intentionally destroying potatoes to collect federal farm insurance payments. In separate hearings, U.S. District...
Dead L.A. Stadium $5.8M in Free Publicity for Farmers
Mar 11 2015 // Farmers Insurance Group received nearly $6 million in free media exposure for putting its name on a downtown Los Angeles stadium that will never be built. Anschutz Entertainment Group this week announced that it was no...
Arnold Promoted in ACE Agriculture’s Iowa-Based Rain and Hail Division
Mar 11 2015 // ACE Group appointed Scott Arnold as deputy division president of Rain and Hail, a division of ACE Agriculture based in Johnston, Iowa. Arnold was previously executive vice president of Rain and Hail field operations, where...
