After years of devastating wildfires, California farmers are now having trouble getting fire insurance

Late summer to November is wildfire season in California, a state which produces half of the fruits and vegetables in the U.S. and 90 percent of its nuts. Many of the biggest fires in state history have occurred in the last few years, burning up millions of acres of land and costing insurers billions of dollars. As a result, hundreds of California farmers are being told by insurance companies that their farms and equipment will no longer be covered, reports Civil Eats. Some of these farmers have taken extra precautions by building barns out of metal instead of wood, and keeping expensive tractors and trucks away from flammable vineyards. Even so, they’re still having trouble getting insurance, which has skyrocketed to “double or triple” its usual cost. So what’s a California farmer worried about spontaneous blazes to do? For now, they wait. The California Farm Bureau Federation has made affordable fire insurance “priority number one,” and a bill has been introduced in the state Senate that would include farmers in the California FAIR Plan, a state program subsidized by private insurance companies that would provide farmers with a “last resort” option.