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Climate change impacts crop insurance cost

A risk management program analyst says climate change is making crop insurance more expensive, affecting all Americans.

Jeff Schahczenski with the National Center for Appropriate Technology tells Brownfield crop insurance as it is structured now has taxpayers covering about 64% of the premiums in subsidies, and the impacts of climate change will only make risk management more costly. “There’s going to be some kind of a reckoning. We’re going to have to start thinking about is this the best way or are there better ways within the program to mitigate the risk that farmers and ranchers face every day.”

Schahczenski suggests the U.S. move to a whole-farm revenue model for risk management. “And what this does is it means that all types of farms whether they’re small vegetable operations or corn and soybean farmers all can all be protected because the basis of their insurance is their capacity to generate revenue.”

Schahczenski says the current U.S. risk management system isn’t broken but it is breaking and added unknown costs like the recently-proposed catastrophic livestock coverage proposed by the pork producers would be difficult to pay for.

Schahczenski spoke to Brownfield during the Marbleseed Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, Wisconsin Friday.