Most Popular Agribusiness Headlines This Year
The most viewed headlines from our Agribusiness Topic Page over the last year.
#1 Farmers Adjusters Cry Foul Over Workloads, Claims Handling in Letter to Regulators
Jun 20 2024 // Farmers Insurance officials this week said they have spoken with employees after receiving an anonymous letter, apparently from a group of in-house adjusters, accusing the insurer of understaffing and overworking claims...
#2 Trump’s Trade War Is Making US Farmers Anxious About Demand Risk
Apr 11 2025 // Josh Yoder, a fifth-generation farmer in Ohio, has been watching gyrations in the crop markets as Donald Trump moved to dramatically escalate his trade war with China this week. Yoder is still an ardent Trump supporter,...
#3 D.A. in California Sues Farmers, Other Home Insurers Alleging Scheme to Underinsure
Jun 13 2024 // Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price’s Consumer Justice Bureau has sued multiple home insurance carriers in California, including Farmers Insurance Exchange, alleging they’re operating a scheme that...
#4 Farmers to Streamline East Region in Move That Will Mean 84 Layoffs
Aug 14 2024 // Farmers Group is laying off more employees one year after it cut ties with 11% of its workforce or 2,400 people. This time the insurer said it is not disclosing how many people may lose their jobs. However on August 7, the...
#5 Farmers Ruined by PFAS Face Key Moment in Fight Against Pentagon
Feb 6 2025 // Neither Art nor Renee Schaap could bear to stay on their dairy farm in Curry County, New Mexico, in April 2022 as employees put down the last of their cattle, shooting 1,000 in the head one by one with .22 caliber...
#6 Missouri Farmer Who Stars in Reality TV Series Pleads Guilty to Crop Insurance Fraud
Nov 7 2024 // A Missouri farmer who appears in a reality TV show about his family’s farming operation pleaded guilty this week to a multi-million dollar fraud scheme involving federal crop insurance benefits. Steve A. McBee, 52,...
#7 Farmers Now Eyeing California Favorably and Will Expand Its Coverage Options
Dec 11 2024 // Farmers Insurance said on Wednesday it will resume offering coverage for multiple lines of insurance in California to new customers. The lines include condominium, renters, umbrella, landlord, vacant and manufactured home....
#8 A Los Angeles Actuary on Lessons From the Palisades Fire
Jan 16 2025 // I watched as the skies over my home in Los Angeles turned an apocalyptic orange on January 7, 2025, as wildfires raged across the state. Among the most devastating, the Palisades Fire consumed thousands of acres, leaving a...
#9 Local Opposition Challenges Wind Farm Development in Rural Nebraska
Jul 29 2024 // After NextEra proposed a wind farm in Greeley County, Nebraska two years ago, Robert Bernt, a dairy farm owner in the area, helped to mobilize community members against the idea. His group held town hall meetings and ran...
#10 Midwestern Farmers Who Say Yes to Solar Power Face Neighbors’ Wrath
Aug 2 2024 // When Michigan farmer Clara Ostrander heard about the benefits of hosting a solar energy project, she remembered something her father had told her four days before he died: Don’t sell the farm. Keep it in the...
#11 Flooded Farms, Fouled Rivers, Dozens Dead: Helene’s Rising Toll
Oct 2 2024 // As historic floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Helene recede across the US Southeast, the region faces a humanitarian, economic and ecological crisis of staggering scope, with effects likely to last years. Cotton crops on...
#12 Farmers Still Reeling After Hurricane Helene Ravaged Crops Across the Southeast
Dec 23 2024 // LYONS, Ga. (AP) — Twisted equipment and snapped tree limbs still litter Chris Hopkins’ Georgia farm more than two months after Hurricane Helene made its deadly march across the South. An irrigation sprinkler system...
#13 Crop Insurance Won’t Let Some Farmers Adapt to Climate Change
Jul 29 2024 // In Kansas, where a prolonged drought has killed crops and eroded the soil, Gail Fuller’s farm is like an oasis. Sheep, cows and chickens graze freely on crops and vegetation in a paradisiacal mess. But if...
#14 Another Kentucky Farmer Pleads Guilty to Crop Insurance Fraud
Apr 1 2025 // A Kentucky farmer is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to defrauding the federal crop insurance program of almost $1.5 million. Robert Thomas Hunt, of Taylor County in central Kentucky, asked grain haulers to sell...
#15 Farmers Estimates $600M in Losses from LA Wildfires
Feb 19 2025 // Farmers said on Wednesday that it expects losses from the Los Angeles wildfires last month to reach an estimated $600 million. Insurance companies have so far paid out more than $6.9 billion for losses from the biggest two...
#16 Tennessee, Kentucky Tobacco Farmer Sentenced for Second Crop Insurance Fraud
May 31 2024 // A Kentucky tobacco farmer has been sentenced to more than three years in prison after pleading guilty to crop insurance fraud, eight years after he was convicted of similar crimes. David Manion, 61, who resides in...
#17 Wisconsin Man Charged With Crop Insurance Fraud
Nov 27 2024 // A Wisconsin man has been charged with defrauding the Federal Crop Insurance Program, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Wisconsin announced. Lance G. Meier, 52, Ogema, is charged with defrauding...
#18 AM Best Downgrades Credit Ratings of Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company of Arkansas
Jun 5 2024 // AM Best has downgraded the Financial Strength Rating to B (Fair) from B+ (Good) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating to “bb” (Fair) from “bbb-” (Good) of Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company of...
#19 AM Best Downgrades Credit Ratings of Texas Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co.
Sep 18 2024 // AM Best has downgraded the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) to B++ (Good) from A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICR) to “bbb+” (Good) from “a-” (Excellent) of Texas...
#20 Wildfires Are Growing Under Climate Change, and Their Smoke Threatens Farmworkers
Aug 16 2024 // As wildfires scorched swaths of land in the wine country of Sonoma County in 2020, sending ash flying and choking the air with smoke, Maria Salinas harvested grapes. Her saliva turned black from inhaling the toxins, until...
