{"id":2355,"date":"2011-12-19T15:12:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T15:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calcanstaging.kinsta.cloud\/?p=2355"},"modified":"2025-10-03T05:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:58:08","slug":"crop-insurance-reform-must-reflect-climate-realities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calclimateag.org\/es\/crop-insurance-reform-must-reflect-climate-realities\/","title":{"rendered":"Crop Insurance Reform Must Reflect Climate Realities"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are some good reasons suggesting that we need to reevaluate federal crop insurance policies.<\/p>\n

First, the effects of climate change are already being felt by farmers across the country. The extreme weather events of 2011 throughout the United States \u2014 including severe floods and drought, and the related economic losses into the billions of dollars \u2014 have raised awareness about the vulnerability of agriculture to more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns. Farmers, government agencies and policymakers are now considering how to be better prepared for weather extremes, including reforming how we insure farms against catastrophic losses.<\/p>\n

Second, in the recent flurry of farm bill activity sparked by the (now failed) \u201csuper committee\u201d process, robust debates began on how to spend public money on supporting the country\u2019s food and farming system. There is every indication that powerful agribusiness interests will agree to reduce, or in some cases eliminate, commodity payments that for decades have guaranteed billions of dollars in revenue for producers of the major commodities (e.g., corn, soy, wheat, rice, cotton, etc.). However, this historic concession will come with a significant tradeoff \u2014 namely, the expansion of federal crop insurance payments, essentially continuing the practice of minimizing economic risk for producers of these crops. Farmers need good crop insurance.\u00a0 The question is how crop insurance is structured, which will impact not only what is grown and how, but whether or not taxpayers are on the hook for what could be expensive and risky policies.<\/p>\n

Lastly, all of these debates come at time when federal policy decisions continue to be examined through the lens of budgetary austerity, and farm bill programs are no exception. In the case of crop insurance, which must be considered in light of climate change, the challenge will be to sort out what risk management programs and policies are truly the most economical and sustainable over the long term.<\/p>\n

A new briefing, A Risky Proposition: Crop Insurance in the Face of Climate Change<\/a><\/em> by the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy<\/a> (IATP) makes the case that farmers need adequate insurance, particularly in view of increased challenges caused by climate change. But the authors also argue that the support should be coupled with measures that mitigate climate change risk for agriculture and increase on-farm resilience. To do otherwise, they say, is \u201clike offering a home owner a fire insurance policy, but not even requiring the most basic preventative measures, such as smoke alarms or fire extinguishers.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the authors note the current system of taxpayer-backed farm insurance isn\u2019t working as well as it needs to. Some highlights:<\/p>\n