"As climate change worsens flooding across the Midwest and South, crop insurance payments on waterlogged land have surged 300 percent in recent decades. That number will likely rise."

"The vast Mississippi River watershed contains famously fertile soil, making the cropland of the American Midwest some of the most valuable and productive in the world.

The watershed is also projected to flood more frequently and intensely as the climate warms, meaning more of that prized farmland will end up underwater, more often.

But according to a new analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, American taxpayers are spending tens of millions of dollars every year encouraging farmers to plant on land that floods repeatedly."

Georgina Gustin reports for Inside Climate News March 30, 2022. [2]