Climate change has U.S. fund managers adjusting agriculture investments

After historic floods devastated Midwestern agricultural states this spring, some fund managers are evaluating how climate change will affect the long-term value of companies that make or sell products ranging from tractors to fertilizer. The issue is not simply the unpredictability of weather. Instead, fund managers say, they are struggling to model how extreme weather events from droughts to more powerful storms will affect commodity prices and, in turn, spending by farmers on equipment or seeds.More extreme weather in the Midwest, for instance, will boost the cost of grains for feed, which will cut margins of egg producers like Cal-Maine Foods Inc, he noted. Barge companies such as Kirby Corp that move commodities down the Mississippi River may have more days that operations are out of service because of flooding, he added.