New Findings Reported from University of Nebraska Describe Advances in Agriculture (Insured Corn Losses in the United States from Weather and Climate Perils): Agriculture

2022 AUG 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Ecology Daily News -- A new study on agriculture is now available. According to news reporting out of Lincoln, Nebraska, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “This study used corn insurance data as a proxy for agricultural loss to better inform producers and decision-makers about resilience and mitigation.”

Our news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from University of Nebraska: “Building on previous research examining crop losses based on weather and climate perils, updates to the peril climatology, identification of peril hotspots, and the quantification of annual trends using inflation-adjusted indemnities for corn were performed over the period 1989-2020. Normalization techniques in loss cost and acreage loss at county-level spatial resolution were also calculated. Indemnity data showed drought and excess moisture as the two costliest and most frequent perils for corn in the United States, although changes in the socioeconomic landscape and frequency of extreme weather events in the recent decade have led to significant increases in corn indemnities for drought, heat, excess moisture, flood, hail, excess wind, and cold wet weather. Normalized losses also displayed significant trends but were dependent on the cause of loss and amount of spatial aggregation. Perhaps most notable were the documented robust increases in corn losses associated with excess moisture, especially considering future projections for increased mid and end-of-century extreme precipitation. Subtle decreasing trends in drought, hail, freeze/frost, and flood loss cost over the study period indicates hedging taking place to protect against these perils, especially in corn acreage outside the Corn Belt in high-risk production zones.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The use of crop insurance as a proxy for agricultural loss highlights the importance for quantifying spatiotemporal trends by informing targeted adaption to certain hazards and operational management decisions. Significance Statement: This study quantified the climatology and trends of weather and climate perils affecting corn in the United States. Robust increases in losses were noted with perils causing excess moisture, which is cause for further concern given projected increases in extreme rainfall under a warming climate.”

For more information on this research see: Insured Corn Losses in the United States from Weather and Climate Perils. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 2022,61(8). The publisher for Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology is American Meteorological Society.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1175/jamc-d-21-0245.1.

Our news editors report that more information may be obtained by contacting Logan R. Bundy, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. Additional authors for this research include Vittorio A. Gensini, Mark S. Russo.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)