Growing Returns

Farmers need technical support to balance crop yields with climate benefits

By Doria Gordon / Bio / Published: May 19, 2025

Cornfields on Ohio farm.

Cropland, which covers roughly 13% of global land surface, is integral to producing food, slowing warming and boosting resilience. Farmers find themselves in a difficult spot: they are compelled to deliver higher yields to feed a growing human population but with a lower carbon footprint.

This complexity is underscored in a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, which assessed how tillage, cover crops and crop residue affected both crop yields and greenhouse gas mitigation over time. This work is the first to examine the yield and mitigation impacts of common regenerative agriculture practices independently and collectively at a global scale looking out to 2050 and 2100.

Importantly, farmers can use these conservation practices to produce yields and mitigation, but they will need additional technical and financial assistance to do so. This is critical to maintaining livelihoods, food stability and supporting the climate.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged Climate, cropland, crops, farmers, technical assistance, yields | Comments are closed

A new resource hub empowers crop insurers and farmers to boost financial resilience to extreme weather

By Vincent Gauthier / Bio / Published: December 13, 2024

A farmer stands in a field of soybean crop and corn residue, facing a glowing sunset.

From extensive droughts across the Great Plains and back-to-back hurricanes damaging vegetable and citrus crops in the Southeast, the last two production seasons have demonstrated the intensifying damage of extreme weather on America’s farms. In 2023 alone, natural disasters caused nearly $22 billion in crop and rangeland losses. While crop insurance is a critical safety net for farmers, the growing impact of climate change underscores the need for proactive resilience strategies on the farm.

Recognizing this, Chubb and its crop insurance division Rain & Hail — the largest crop and agriculture insurance provider in the U.S. — has launched a new resource hub designed to equip farmers and crop insurance agents with essential tools, insights and advisors to increase on-farm resilience. Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps fellow Carter Purcell led the development of the hub during her time at Chubb.

The new resource hub highlights the increasing need for comprehensive risk management solutions that not only protect farms financially in the short term, but also support long-term resilience.

Learn more about the relationship between crop insurance and resilience to extreme weather, and why it’s critical to provide solutions that support farmers’ short- and long-term financial resilience.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agricultural finance, crop insurance, farm finance, financial resilience | Comments are closed

PACE Crop Insurance helps an Illinois farmer improve conservation and save money

By Erin Leonard / Published: February 23, 2024

Co-authored by Pinion

The use and production of fertilizer in agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and a major cause of pollution in the nation’s rivers and lakes. Agriculture is the largest global source of nitrogen pollution, and annual damages from nitrogen pollution are estimated to exceed $200 billion in the US. Enhancing nitrogen use efficiency and optimizing application techniques is essential to reducing these impacts.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged economics, farm finance, farmer, insurance, PACE, resilient | Comments are closed

Study shows healthy soils protect corn yields and lower crop insurance payouts

By Emily Oldfield / Published: March 10, 2021

Managing risks presented by extreme weather conditions such as heat and drought is a top priority of farmers and policymakers, as researchers predict that higher temperatures and reduced precipitation could reduce yields by up to 30% over the next 50 years.

Farmers are already experiencing these impacts and becoming increasingly dependent on the Federal Crop Insurance Program to manage the resulting yield risks. As of this February, 2020 crop insurance indemnities totaled $7.7 billion, with just over 60% of the average crop insurance premiums covered by the taxpayer. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged corn, crop insurance, farm finance, soil health, yield | Comments are closed

3 ways the farm bill can protect croplands from extreme weather

By Suzy Friedman / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: July 12, 2017

Photo Credit: Flickr user Benjamin Disinger (License)

Here’s a statement that everyone can agree on, regardless of politics: Farmers benefit from making their croplands more resilient to the effects of extreme weather.

Report after report, including a study this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, has shown that shifting climatic conditions will hit agriculture hard, threatening food supplies and farmers’ incomes. This week’s report found that in years when the Arctic was warmer than normal, the average decline in yields across the United States was as high as 4 percent – and in Texas, corn yields were as low as 20 percent of what they are in typical years.

Farmers can take steps to protect their operations from extreme weather – but they can’t do it alone.

The 2018 farm bill can and should play a powerful role in helping farmers adapt to changing climatic conditions by prioritizing and supporting public-private partnerships, innovation, and financial models that can accelerate deployment of conservation practices.

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, collaborative conservation, Congress, conservation, extreme weather, farm bill, innovation, NRCS, precision agriculture, RCPP, resilience, RMA, USDA | Read 1 Response

Birds, snakes and butterflies: Farming for more than crops and cash

By Scott Sellers / Bio / Published: July 27, 2016

Davis Ranch manager John Brennan pointed out a hundred year-old valley oak. Resting in the highest branches was a large nest about two feet wide, where a pair of hawks were nesting. As we dispersed about the ranch, one of the hawks greeted us by spreading its wings and soaring off into the blue sky.

A pair of Swainson’s hawk nest in a 100-year-old valley oak tree at Davis Ranch in Colusa, California. (Credit: Emily James)

The Golden State is well known for its robust and diverse agricultural output, even during times of drought. In 2014, California’s farms, ranches and nurseries turned out $54 billion worth of everything from oranges to rice, and milk to nuts.

Our farms and ranches are less renowned for the rich wildlife habitat they also provide, in some cases for threatened species like the Swainson’s hawk and giant garter snake, which have long struggled with the disappearance of their historic habitat in open grasslands and tule marshes.

The Swainson’s hawk population in California used to be close to 17,000 mating pairs. Today, that number is closer to 2,000. And the giant garter snake has faced the loss of 95 percent of its historic Central Valley wetland habitat. In both cases, landscape conversion and fragmentation, in addition to land management practices such as rodent control, have steadily worn away the suitable habitat for these species.

Fortunately, many species are adapting to these landscape changes and, with wildlife-friendly practices, are able to thrive on productive California farms and ranches. Farms like Davis Ranch. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, california, central valley, central valley habitat exchange, Davis Ranch, drought, environmental defense fund, giant garter snake, habitat exchange, monarch butterfly, rice farm, Swainson's hawk | Comments are closed

California takes giant step toward approving first crop-based carbon standards

By Robert Parkhurst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: December 18, 2014

A significant milestone was achieved today in the California cap-and-trade market. For the first time, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) considered a land-based carbon offset protocol that will allow U.S. rice growers to earn additional revenue for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from cultivation.

This is a big deal. U.S. agriculture has tremendous potential to not only provide the nation with the food we eat, but also the climate solutions we need to sustain our growth.

Farmers grow carbon credits

The protocol covers rice cultivation practices in both the Sacramento Valley of California and the Mississippi River Valley, which encompasses Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Growers here can implement any combination of three practices – dry seeding, early drainage or alternate wetting and drying – and collect data to be independently verified to create a carbon credit.

Nearly two dozen farmers have already expressed interest and are starting to gear up their operations to generate offsets in the spring of 2015. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged AB 32, california, California Air Resources Board, California Rice Commission, cap and trade, Pacific Gas and Electric, rice, rice farmer, rice protocol | Comments are closed

Farm budget analysis finds 3 ways conservation affects the bottom line

By Vincent Gauthier / Bio / Published: February 16, 2021

Soil health practices can provide many public environmental benefits including reduced soil erosion, increased soil organic carbon and improved water quality. However, adoption of soil health practices such as no-till and cover crops only represent 26% and 4% of U.S. farmland respectively.

Still, we know farmers can be rapid adopters of new technologies, including new seed varieties and equipment, when presented with a profitable solution. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged conservation tillage, cover crops, farm finance, no-till, soil health, Soil Health Partnership | Comments are closed

These farms planted wildflowers to attract bugs to control pests. And it’s working.

By Dan Kaiser / Bio / Published: June 23, 2020

Last fall, two farms in California’s Sacramento Valley planted a wildflower cover crop mix as part of a commitment to restore habitat within 325 acres of pecan orchards. The farms, Pacific Gold Agriculture and Bypass Farms, are participating in a project called “Orchards Alive” in hopes that wildflowers will attract pollinators and naturally reduce pest pressure.

Orchards Alive came about thanks to a $3 million monarch and pollinator recovery bill (AB 2421) designed to establish habitat restoration projects for important pollinator species facing steep population losses. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged aphids, california, farmer, ladybird beetles, ladybugs, orchards, pecans, pest, soil health | Comments are closed

Improving water quality is a shared responsibility

By Suzy Friedman / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: September 19, 2017

Iowa farmer Denny Friest surveys his fields from his combine.

Iowa farmer Denny Friest (Photo credit: John Rae)

I spent the summer meeting with farmers, commodity groups and food companies in the Midwest to discuss collaborative conservation approaches. Whether we were in Missouri, Iowa or Minnesota, water quality was top of mind.

Agriculture has a large impact on water quality – the sector is the source of 70 percent of the nutrients that flow down the Mississippi River and cause dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.

Farmers have made big strides on implementing and scaling conservation measures to improve water quality and agriculture’s overall environmental footprint. Unsung heroes like Tim Richter, Kristin Duncanson and Denny Friest are constantly fine-tuning nutrient and soil management with new efficiency tools, finding better ways to implement cover crops or reduce tillage, installing wetlands and buffers, and introducing new crops into their rotations. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture, Water / Tagged campbell soup company, collaborative conservation, Denny Friest, farm bill, Kristin Duncanson, Kristin Weeks Duncanson, Land O'Lakes, midwest row crop collaborative, nutrient management, nutrient use, Smithfield Foods, SUSTAIN, Tim Richter, USDA, water quality | Read 1 Response