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They Grow Your Berries and Peaches, but Often Lack One Item: Insurance

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Farmers of fruits and vegetables say coverage has become unavailable or unaffordable as drought and floods increasingly threaten their crops.Farmers who grow fresh fruits and vegetables are often finding crop insurance prohibitively expensive — or even unavailable — as climate change escalates the likelihood of drought and floods capable of decimating harvests.Their predicament has left some small farmers questioning their future on the land.Efforts to increase the availability and affordability of crop insurance are being considered in Congress as part of the next farm bill, but divisions between the interests of big and small farmers loom over the debate.The threat to farms from climate change is not hypothetical. A 2021 study from researchers at Stanford University found that rising temperatures were responsible for 19 percent of the $27 billion in crop insurance payouts from 1991 to 2017 and concluded that additional warming substantially increases the likelihood of future crop losses.About 85 percent of the nation’s commodity crops — which include row crops like corn, soybeans and wheat — are insured, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, a nonprofit promoting environmentally friendly food production.In contrast, barely half the land devoted to specialty crops — supermarket staples like strawberries, apples, asparagus and peaches — was insured in 2022, federal statistics show.Among those going without insurance is Bernie Smiarowski, who farms potatoes on 700 acres in western Massachusetts, along with 12 acres for strawberries. His soil is considered some of the nation’s most fertile. The trade-off is the proximity to the Connecticut River, a bargain that grows more tenuous as a warming world heightens the likelihood of flooding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Baltimore Bridge Collapse Creates Upheaval at Largest U.S. Port for Car Trade

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    The Baltimore bridge disaster on Tuesday upended operations at one of the nation’s busiest ports, with disruptions likely to be felt for weeks by companies shipping goods in and out of the country — and possibly by consumers as well.The upheaval will be especially notable for auto makers and coal producers for whom Baltimore has become one of the most vital shipping destinations in the United States.As officials began to investigate why a nearly 1,000-foot cargo ship ran into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the middle of the night, companies that transport goods to suppliers and stores scrambled to get trucks to the other East Coast ports receiving goods diverted from Baltimore. Ships sat idle elsewhere, unsure where and when to dock.“It’s going to cause a lot of chaos,” said Paul Brashier, vice president for drayage and intermodal at ITS Logistics.The closure of the Port of Baltimore is the latest hit to global supply chains, which have been strained by monthslong crises at the Panama Canal, which has had to slash traffic because of low water levels; and the Suez Canal, which shipping companies are avoiding because of attacks by the Houthis on vessels in the Red Sea.The auto industry now faces new supply headaches.Last year, 570,000 vehicles were imported through Baltimore, according to Sina Golara, an assistant professor of supply chain management at Georgia State University. “That’s a huge amount,” he said, equivalent to nearly a quarter of the current inventory of new cars in the United States.Baltimore Ranks in the Top 20 U.S. PortsTotal trade in 2021 in millions of tons

    Source: Bureau of Transportation StatisticsElla KoezeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Russian Attack Threatens Even Alternative Routes for Ukrainian Grain

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    The attack on a grain hangar on the Danube River, an alternative export route that has become an economic lifeline, complicates Ukraine’s efforts to export its grain.For shipping companies looking for a way to bring Ukrainian grain to global markets, the options keep dwindling, escalating a trade crisis that is expected to add pressure on global food prices.Russia last week pulled out of an agreement that had allowed for the safe passage of vessels through the Black Sea. On Monday it threatened an alternative route for grain, attacking a grain hangar at a Ukrainian port on the Danube River that has served as a key artery for transporting goods while the Black Sea remains blockaded. “It’s opening a new front in the targeting of Ukrainian grain exports,” said Alexis Ellender, an analyst at Kpler, a commodities analytics firm, adding that the route had been considered safe because of its proximity to Romania, a NATO member.“This will potentially close off that route,” he said. It could also raise rates for shipping insurance and further cripple Ukraine’s ability to export grain.Hours after the predawn attack on the hangar at the Ukrainian port of Reni, dozens of vessels that had been bound to collect grain from Ukraine were clustered at the mouth of the Danube. More

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    Price Cap on Russian Oil Wins Backing of G7 Ministers

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    The proposal aims to stabilize unsettled energy markets in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it faces considerable obstacles.WASHINGTON — Top officials from the world’s leading advanced economies agreed on Friday to move ahead with a plan to cap the price of Russian oil, accelerating an ambitious effort to limit how much money Russia can earn from each barrel of crude it sells on the global market.Finance ministers from the Group of 7 nations said they were firming up details of a price cap, with the aim of both depressing the price of global oil and reducing critical revenue that President Vladimir V. Putin is relying on to finance Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. The untested plan has been pushed by the Biden administration as way of keeping sanctions pressure on Russia while minimizing the impact on a global economy that has been saddled with soaring energy and food prices this year.Hours after the G7 ministers announced their plan on Friday, Gazprom, the Russian-owned energy giant, said it would postpone restarting the flow of natural gas through a closely watched pipeline that connects Russia to Germany, known as Nord Stream 1. The unexpected delay was attributed to mechanical problems with the pipeline, but it raised concerns that it was in retaliation for the price cap, an idea that Moscow has condemned.Eric Mamer, a spokesman for the European Commission, said that the “fallacious pretenses” for the latest delay were “proof of Russia’s cynicism.”The price cap still has many hurdles to clear before it can take effect, but its goal is to keep Russian oil flowing to global markets that depend on those supplies, while substantially reducing the profit Moscow reaps from its sales. Europe still consumes nearly two million barrels of Russian oil a day, though its imports have fallen since the war began, and the European Union is preparing to wean itself off those supplies by the end of the year.Officials are racing to put the price-cap plan in place by early December to try to limit the economic fallout from the new E.U. sanctions. They would ban nearly all Russian oil imports to the European Union and block the insurance and financing of Russian oil shipments.The Biden administration has become concerned that those moves could send energy prices skyrocketing and potentially tip the global economy into a recession if millions of barrels of Russian oil were suddenly yanked off the global market, drastically reducing the world’s supply of crude. U.S. administration officials have estimated that oil could soar to $200 a barrel or higher unless efforts to impose the price cap are successful.The initiative is a novel attempt to blunt the global economic impact of the invasion. Oil prices rose as fears of confrontation grew a year ago, and spiked when Russian troops entered Ukraine in February. They have receded in recent months, in part because much of Europe has tipped into recession, reducing global oil demand.Whether the price cap can work will hinge on a variety of factors, including securing agreement by all 27 E.U. member states and determining how the actual price would be set. Maritime insurers, which are critical to making the plan work, would also have to figure out how to comply in a way that allows them to continue insuring Russian oil cargo without running afoul of sanctions.The industry, which would be responsible for making sure that oil buyers and sellers were honoring the price cap, has warned that insurers lack the capacity to police the transactions. Financial services in Europe undergird international energy shipments around the world, and fully blocking their ability to deal with Russian oil could disrupt exports globally, even to countries that have not adopted Russian oil embargoes.The G7 finance ministers said in their statement that they intended to use a “record-keeping and attestation model” to track of whether oil transactions were below the price ceiling, and that they would try to minimize the administrative burden on insurers.A tanker at a crude oil terminal near Nakhodka. Maritime insurers would have to figure out how to comply with a cap in a way that allows them to continue covering Russian oil cargo.Tatiana Meel/ReutersRachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said the agreement unveiled on Friday raised more questions than answers and suggested a challenging path ahead.“This sounds like something that is very technical and technocratic that is going to be hard to monitor and fully enforce,” Ms. Ziemba said.Understand the Decline in U.S. Gas PricesCard 1 of 5Understand the Decline in U.S. Gas PricesGas prices are falling. More