Millions Of Unplanted Acres Mean Billions In Crop Insurance Payouts This Year

Six acres of Larry Conrad’s cornfield just off Interstate 35 look like a swamp nearly two months after corn should have been planted.

Every day, a pump kicks on to shoot water from those acres into a ditch beyond the field. And still, more water keeps emerging as rain leaches from the field like an old sponge. Conrad left the field unplanted and will collect a federal crop insurance payment instead.

“You’d much rather have a crop out there,” Conrad said. “It just bugs you to see a field sitting idle.”

The cool, wet spring forced farmers across the Midwest to leave millions of acres of corn and soybeans unplanted and will likely trigger a record payout in a subset of crop insurance called “prevented plant.” The payments are triggered under crop insurance when weather prevented farmers from planting a field.