Why Insurance Companies Care About Cranberries
- Hancock agriculture unit sees adding to $2.5 billion in assets
- Cranberry sector still reeling from 2013 record crop
A cranberry harvester rakes ripe cranberries towards an industrial pump at the Bumpus cranberry bog during the fall cranberry harvest for the A.D. Makepeace Company in Carver, Massachusetts on Wednesday, October 2, 2013. A.D. Makepeace is the world's largest cranberry producer. Matthew Healey/Bloomberg
Photographer: Matthew Healey/BloombergWith cranberry prices at the lowest in a half century, Nodji Van Wychen has been forced to cut back on fertilizer, staff and pollinating bees just to keep her farm going near Pittsville, Wisconsin. Other cranberry growers are finding it easier to sell the farm to John Hancock Life Insurance Co. and its ever-expanding agriculture group.
"We pretty much cut everything in half," the third-generation farmer said from her home at the family’s 110-acre (45-hectare) marsh northwest of Milwaukee. It’s the worst environment she’s seen since 1959 when farmers dumped their entire crop amid a health scare. Van Wychen doesn’t want to sell the operation, but admits the future of cranberries may not include family growers. "There are many smaller farmers that are finding that they literally cannot make it," she said.