Mississippi River Critical Conservation Area Crop Insurance Hotspots

info
Search button

About the Map

This map shows county-level payouts from the federal Crop Insurance Program between 2001 and 2020 for all counties in the Mississippi River Critical Conservation Area, or MRCCA. The area is one of eight U.S. regions covered by the Department of Agriculture’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and it is a region that is critical to the country for agriculture, industry, wildlife and ecological resources.

The map highlights total crop insurance payouts, called indemnities, as well as payouts from the top five weather-related causes of loss in the MRCCA. Causes of loss are factors that trigger a crop insurance payout because of damage to crop yield, such as drought, excessive rain or hail, or decrease on the price side of farmer revenues, like a decline in crop price. For more information about crop insurance indemnities and the causes of loss that trigger payments, see EWG’s Crop Insurance Primer.

The climate crisis has already increased the cost of crop insurance, since many crop insurance causes of loss are the result of adverse weather conditions, and it will cause even more insurance payments and damage to crops in the future. This map displays crop insurance payments for the MRCCA’s top five weather causes of loss to help illustrate the impact that climate change is already having on the crop insurance program in the MRCCA.

The top five weather-related causes of loss in the MRCCA between 2001 and 2020 were excess moisture, precipitation and rain; drought; flood; heat; and hail.

All map layers show crop insurance indemnities by county from 2001 through 2020, as well as the frequency of payments for each county. The pink layer has total crop insurance indemnities across all causes of loss, both weather and not weather related. The other layers are for the top five weather causes of loss – the turquoise layer has payments for excess moisture, the yellow and orange layer has drought payments, the purple layer has flood payments, the yellow layer has heat payments and the green layer has payments for hail.

Click on an individual county to see its total indemnities for the top five weather causes of loss over the 2001 to 2020 period, total insurance indemnities by year, and the frequency of indemnities – the number of years when the county had indemnity payments above zero, as well as the number of years with payments above the MRCCA county-level average.

To see more information about the MRCCA crop insurance hotspot counties, read the report here.



MAP KEY

Total Indemnities (2001-2020)

$0 - 20,000,000
$20,000,001 - 60,000,000
$60,000,001 - 100,000,000
$100,000,001 - 200,000,000
> $200,000,000

Cause of Loss: Excess Moisture

$0 - 10,000,000
$10,000,001 - 30,000,000
$30,000,001 - 50,000,000
$50,000,001 - 100,000,000
> $100,000,000

Cause of Loss: Drought

$0 - 10,000,000
$10,000,001 - 20,000,000
$20,000,001 - 40,000,000
$40,000,001 - 70,000,000
> $70,000,000

Cause of Loss: Flood

$0 - 1,000,000
$1,000,001 - 3,000,000
$3,000,001 - 8,000,000
$8,000,001 - 15,000,000
> $15,000,000

Cause of Loss: Heat

$0 - 1,000,000
$1,000,001 - 3,000,000
$3,000,001 - 8,000,000
$8,000,001 - 15,000,000
> $15,000,000

Cause of Loss: Hail

$0 - 1,000,000
$1,000,001 - 3,000,000
$3,000,001 - 8,000,000
$8,000,001 - 15,000,000
> $15,000,000


Search by Zip Code

Please type below a 5-digit Zip Code, then click on "SEARCH"