Easier access to more weather data can drive insurance growth

As the climate around the globe changes and extreme weather events become more prevalent, the risk to the agriculture industry increases. (Photo: ekapolsira/Adobe Stock)

Weather events are becoming more frequent and disastrous for the agriculture industry around the globe. Natural disasters can happen over short periods of time, like the derecho storm in 2020 that devastated about 14 million acres of corn and soybean crops in Iowa with an insurance liability of about $6 billion. Weather events can also cause long-term damage over multiple growing seasons, as the drought and saltwater intrusion from rising sea levels in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta has triggered a decline in rice production for the region.

The effects of weather events like these can be devasting to farmers, and while no one can control the weather, accurately predicting the weather and its effect on crops is possible with the right data to drive the analytics.