(Bloomberg) -- In the U.S, government-backed insurance plans help compensate farmers for losses after natural disasters.
Unfortunately for the produce growers that were ravaged by recent hurricanes, a lot of the nation’s vegetable and fruit crops aren’t covered.
Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, which devastated parts of Florida, Texas and the Gulf Coast, also hit some of the nation’s least-insured crops, based on data the U.S. Department of Agriculture released in a report Wednesday. Nationwide, only 16% of peppers and 2% of strawberries, both key Florida products, are covered by insurance.
|'Extreme weather events are coming more often'
"Extreme weather events are coming more often, and farmers do need tools," said Krysta Harden, a former deputy secretary of the USDA, who’s now the chief sustainability officer and vice president for public policy for the agriculture division of DowDuPont Inc. "Crop insurance helps them deal with these extreme weather patterns. The need for it is increasing," she said in an interview in New York.
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