(Bloomberg) — With 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 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.
As cranberry season reaches its zenith over the Christmas holiday, farmers are increasingly selling family-owned cranberry bogs — the large tracts of wetland where the bobbing red fruit grow — to larger operators. One buyer name that reigns in these parts is John Hancock, whose agricultural investment group is actively looking for distressed cranberry operations to add to its $2.5 billion in assets.
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