Indemnities by Crop in the United States

METHODOLOGY: EWG obtained county level crop insurance information from USDA Risk Management Agency which shows premium subsidies, indemnities and farmer premiums at the county/crop level by crop year. Administrative and Operating Expense Reimbursements to crop insurance companies (A+O), Other program fund costs, Other administrative and operating fund costs expenses, and Government earned interest were allocated to the crop/county level by using the national expenditures/revenue of the Crop Insurance program (available here for 2001-2008 and from RMA previous to 2001) in each category and attributing them the crop/county level by total premiums. EWG was unable to attribute underwriting gains to the county/crop level. Underwriting gains (or losses) are paid to insurance companies when the insurance companies collect more in total subsidies than are paid out in indemnities. Since underwriting gains are paid by company on the basis of all of their policies, EWG was unable to allocate underwriting gains by crop or by region. The total underwriting gains for 1995-2011 is $12 billion.

Note: The information on conservation spending for 2011 is incomplete due to missing data from USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service. In addition some payments made in 2010 were not assigned to recipients in the data received from NRCS. Those payments are also not included.

The information provided for the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) provides an inaccurate picture of how WRP payments are distributed. USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service uses title companies as intermediaries to finalize wetlands easements under the Wetlands Reserve Program. As a result, the data provided to us shows large sums of money going to these title companies. In reality, the payments are ultimately distributed to landowners participating in the WRP.

Unfortunately, NRCS has not provided the data to show where these farms and wetlands are located or which farmers or landowners are enrolling in the program, so EWG is unable to allocate these large sums of money to individuals beyond the title companies. Therefore, these companies skew the conservation rankings and payment concentration, which EWG cannot avoid unless and until NRCS makes available the additional farm attribution data. Therefore, we have not included WRP payments in the 2011 data update.

We have separated data on farm commodity, disaster and conservation payments in order to provide a more accurate picture of top recipients and concentration of payments among the three main categories of USDA programs.

Finally, EWG works hard to ensure the accuracy of the information it provides through its products and services, but obtains data for the Farm Subsidy Database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Therefore, EWG cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information USDA provides or any analysis based thereon. If you find an error or discrepancy on the site, please contact your local USDA Farm Service Agency office to check its records before contacting EWG.