Risk mitigation or risky business? Agricultural stakeholders’ perspectives on crop insurance discount programs, cover crops, and risk management

Crop insurance is a common risk management tool used by farmers worldwide, but its efficacy may be strained under climate change. Consequently, there is growing interest in climate-smart agriculture practices like cover crops, which can increase farm resiliency.We studied a novel conservation incentive program in three US Midwest states that gave farmers a US$5 discount per acre (US$5 discount per 0.4 hectares) on their crop insurance premiums. Through six focus groups with farmers, program administrators, and crop insurance agents (n = 39), we sought to understand how they perceived the discount program to impact cover crop adoption or persistence and to better understand their perspectives on cover crops as a risk-mitigation strategy. Our participants’ experiences indicated that the crop insurance discount incentive is unlikely to drive cover crop adoption or persistence.While the discount significantly reduces crop insurance premiums on the acres to which it is applied, farmers tended to focus on the US$5 ac^–1 dollar amount, which is smaller than financial assistance offered in more traditional incentive programs. Furthermore, some crop insurance agents and farmers perceived cover crops to increase risk. Participants broadly supported the need for more data to quantify the impacts of cover crops to better inform farm management.While using crop insurance to promote cover crops has the potential to reduce farmers’ reliance on taxpayer subsidies and reduce farmers’ risks to extreme weather, program administrators need to tailor messages to make the link between cover crops and risk mitigation more evident.