At $200 per acre, Trego County, KS topped the list of High Plains counties in per acre crop insurance payments in 2012. Other top counties were Wallace County, KS at $157 per acre and Rawlins County, KS at $127 per acre. All three are in Northwest Kansas. At the bottom is the list was Hemphill County, TX in the northeast corner of the Panhandle with just $1 per acre on only 13,400 planted acres.
On a total dollar basis, the top three counties were Thomas County, KS ($51,030,107), Kit Carson County, CO ($46,805,256) and Finney County, KS ($40,818,459). The Federal Crop Insurance Program paid out a record breaking 17.3 billion dollars in claims nationwide for the 2012 crop year, due primarily to drought conditions spanning the Midwest and Plains states. The county with highest payments in the country was Livingston County, IL at $150,744,805 on 582,526 planted acres
To look up payment data for any county in the country, including acres planted by crop, the percentage of crop losses due to drought, hot wind, and heat impacts, as well as the total indemnities paid by cause, click here. The data shown comes directly from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) databases (top planted crops data, total indemnity & claims paid, cause of loss). The look-up tool was developed by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The NRDC is an environmental group whose mission is “to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends”. It recently came out with a report critical of the incentives in the Federal Crop Insurance Program.
For your convenience, here’s a list of key data for High Plains counties including, from left to right, total payments made, total acres planted, and the average payment per acre planted. The list is sorted by payment per acre.
- Trego County, Kansas $15,362,096 | 77,000 | $200
- Wallace County, Kansas $14,771,791 | 94,000 | $157
- Rawlins County, Kansas $34,690,817 | 272,600 | $127
- Scott County, Kansas $32,749,696 | 264,500 | $124
- Decatur County, Kansas $26,366,174 | 225,100 | $117
- Thomas County, Kansas $51,030,107 | 440,806 | $116
- Ellis County, Kansas $11,411,295 | 101,600 | $112
- Sheridan County, Kansas $27,535,497 | 251,700 | $109
- Finney County, Kansas $40,818,459 | 381,931 | $107
- Stanton County, Kansas $19,378,977 | 184,000 | $105
- Lane County, Kansas $17,589,555 | 167,500 | $105
- Kiowa County, Colorado $21,671,287 | 207,000 | $105
- Smith County, Kansas $29,453,619 | 282,500 | $104
- Graham County, Kansas $18,157,254 | 174,500 | $104
- Gove County, Kansas $24,178,146 | 233,000 | $104
- Seward County, Kansas $9,840,929 | 95,800 | $103
- Kit Carson County, Colorado $46,805,256 | 471,300 | $99
- Prowers County, Colorado $16,388,987 | 172,500 | $95
- Phillips County, Kansas $19,766,741 | 209,000 | $95
- Gray County, Texas $4,172,421 | 44,300 | $94
- Grant County, Kansas $16,592,971 | 176,652 | $94
- Oldham County, Texas $4,054,273 | 44,100 | $92
- Osborne County, Kansas $17,854,574 | 203,600 | $88
- Sherman County, Kansas $30,532,045 | 350,600 | $87
- Deaf Smith County, Texas $31,615,316 | 377,107 | $84
- Armstrong County, Texas $6,723,168 | 83,200 | $81
- Clark County, Kansas $5,796,915 | 74,000 | $78
- Wichita County, Kansas $18,710,320 | 255,000 | $73
- Norton County, Kansas $13,582,804 | 186,500 | $73
- Morton County, Kansas $12,020,572 | 165,500 | $73
- Logan County, Kansas $15,776,175 | 232,500 | $68
- Stevens County, Kansas $16,362,391 | 243,000 | $67
- Randall County, Texas $8,755,495 | 130,100 | $67
- Kearny County, Kansas $13,989,665 | 208,500 | $67
- Cheyenne County, Colorado $14,716,437 | 224,000 | $66
- Haskell County, Kansas $16,190,691 | 256,600 | $63
- Gray County, Kansas $18,962,981 | 302,700 | $63
- Rooks County, Kansas $11,666,178 | 191,500 | $61
- Moore County, Texas $13,893,128 | 233,500 | $59
- Potter County, Texas $1,123,005 | 19,100 | $59
- Greeley County, Kansas $15,764,844 | 269,000 | $59
- Hamilton County, Kansas $10,310,666 | 185,000 | $56
- Cheyenne County, Kansas $11,310,018 | 205,900 | $55
- Carson County, Texas $10,416,692 | 190,500 | $55
- Russell County, Kansas $7,073,948 | 134,000 | $53
- Ford County, Kansas $16,037,078 | 313,500 | $51
- Texas County, Oklahoma $21,693,420 | 425,009 | $51
- Ochiltree County, Texas $10,381,914 | 207,300 | $50
- Hodgeman County, Kansas $6,918,332 | 144,500 | $48
- Rush County, Kansas $8,360,598 | 179,500 | $47
- Dallam County, Texas $8,825,181 | 214,155 | $41
- Ness County, Kansas $8,063,649 | 199,500 | $40
- Yuma County, Colorado $15,603,648 | 392,826 | $40
- Hansford County, Texas $9,857,253 | 252,700 | $39
- Cimarron County, Oklahoma $9,964,709 | 284,000 | $35
- Hartley County, Texas $6,294,665 | 192,000 | $33
- Sherman County, Texas $7,765,369 | 274,800 | $28
- Meade County, Kansas $5,524,684 | 197,000 | $28
- Beaver County, Oklahoma $4,587,115 | 166,600 | $28
- Hutchinson County, Texas $2,692,145 | 101,100 | $27
- Wheeler County, Texas $712,981 | 34,302 | $21
- Lipscomb County, Texas $650,534 | 33,000 | $20
- Roberts County, Texas $231,995 | 14,800 | $16
- Hemphill County, Texas $19,796 | 13,400 | $1
