Leah Douglas

(Reuters) – Insurance payments for U.S. farmers who lose crops due to flooding and droughts have increased more than threefold in the last 25 years according to an EWG analysis of federal data released Thursday.

The report reinforces concerns that insuring the nation’s crops will get more expensive for insurance companies, farmers and taxpayers as climate change drives more erratic weather events that disrupt agriculture.

The federal government pays about 60% of the nation’s crop insurance premiums through taxpayer subsidies, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and those premiums tend to rise as insurance payouts grow.

Insurance payments to farmers due to drought rose more than 400% between 1995 and 2020 to $1.65 billion, while payments due to excess moisture – like floods – rose nearly 300% to $2.61 billion, according to the nonprofit environmental group, which examined publicly available data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Reuters looked at the data. It showed a trend upward in payouts for insurance over that period.

During the period analyzed by EWG, the number of insured acres grew just 84.5%, according to the data from the department’s Risk Management Agency, which administers the federal crop insurance program.

“As extreme weather has become more frequent, the climate crisis has already increased insurance payments and premium subsidies. These costs are expected to go up even more, as climate change causes even more unpredictable weather conditions,” EWG said in the report.

However, the report didn’t provide information on average premium increases since 1995. A 2019 USDA report shows that the average cost to insure crops could go up between 3.5% and 22% because of climate change. This is even if farmers adapt to what and where to plant.

Most crops are covered by insurance, including wheat, soyabeans, cotton, and wheat.

Farmers are required to comply with minimal conservation requirements under the federal crop insurance program, such as not planting on highly susceptible land to erosion.

Anne Weir Schechinger is the Midwest director for EWG. She believes that these standards need to be more stringent. “The program needs to be reformed so it encourages farmers to be resilient to extreme weather events that we know are ahead,” she said.