US Farmers Want to Adapt to Climate Change, But Crop Insurance Won’t Let Them

In Kansas, where a prolonged drought has killed crops and eroded the soil, Gail Fuller’s farm is like an oasis. Sheep, cows and chickens graze freely on crops and vegetation in a paradisiacal mess.

But if Fuller’s farm were to be hit by a tornado or flood, or be seriously impacted by the drought, he would be alone in footing the bill. That’s because his farming practices aren’t protected by federal crop insurance, a nearly century-old safety net that hasn’t adapted to the climate change era.

Fuller is one of a growing number of farmers who are uninsured or under-insured because the industry doesn’t support switching from traditional to regenerative farming, an approach that has the potential to sequester enough carbon to halve agricultural emissions by 2030. That shift is becoming more urgent both to slow climate change and insulate farmers from its impacts, yet the insurance industry continues to stand in the way.

In the US, agriculture accounts for about 11% of all greenhouse gas emissions. A large portion of that is tied to tilling soil, which releases carbon dioxide, and applying excessive fertilizer, which emits nitrous oxide. The latter is a greenhouse gas that’s more than 270 times more potent than CO2. Regenerative farming reduces those emissions by soaking up carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, storing carbon in the soil and capturing nitrogen that would otherwise runoff into nearby streams.