DES MOINES, Iowa (WHO) — During all the recent years of drought, one constant for farmers is having crop insurance.

In Iowa, there were 22 million acres covered in 2021. Farmers have purchased $14.9 billion in crop insurance. Farmers paid in $460 million for that insurance. Crop insurance companies paid out over $113 million in claims, according to the National Crop Insurance Services.

“What crop insurance does, it’s all about risk management, but there are things on the farm that you can control,” said Mike Naig, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. “There are things on the farm that you can’t control the crop insurance helps you manage through some of those things that you just can’t control.”

That would include wild weather and swings in the market. 

“Year in and year out I am more of those people, I guess you can say is to help support of the system,” said Mark Jackson, a corn and soybean farmer in Mahaska County. “Off the top my head $.50 is all I returned for every dollar premium that I paid, for the last 50 years .”

Jackson said that having farmed for almost five decades he has much of his equipment paid for, insurance is much more crucial for younger farmers, like his son Michael.

“I think everybody has to study hard and sit down with your insurance agent,” said Jackson. “They all have a computer and they can run schematics so premium cost per acre what you can justify that sort of thing.”

“The farmers can decide where the coverage level that they want to see it so you can make decisions, said Naig. “Farmers do you have the ability to pick their coverage and you know the rates adjust accordingly.”