175 determine an approved yield history. That figure becomes the baseline for insurance claims. To raise the baseline, a farmer might record the accurate overall yield total for all fields but move the numbers around to inflate one field’s total, thus raising that field’s yield history. When that field produces a normal yield the next year, it will appear to have underperformed, providing the basis for a potential insurance claim. “Yield switching is a big deal,” Thorne said. “You improve the outcome of your insurance claim without actually suffering the losses.” The ability to see all related data on a map rather than in a tabular format has helped analysts and investigators find incidents of yield switching and other anomalies. “As a tabular perspective, it kind of gets lost in the detail,” Thorne said. “But when you add the geospatial layer and drop these things on a map, you can look at historical yields and see that the farmer’s yields are constantly fluctuating.” Empowered Analysts with Remarkable Results Today, the USDA RMA has extended access to GIS insights across its team of 90 compliance investigators. Maps and data allow these investigators to dig into the forensics of farming— including plant time versus harvest time, crop yields, and the impact of moisture. The biggest leap, according to Thorne, has been in the nuances of their analysis. They can compare each claimant’s farms to those in similar geographies and consider geographic features in assessing claims. “Your nearest neighbor from a geospatial perspective might be two states away, because that’s where the soil, slope, and climate match,” Thorne said. “One inch of rain on a sloped field versus a flat field makes a big difference. All these itty-bitty things that are geospatially related become very important when you’re trying to estimate crop yields or validate crop loss claims.” Operating Farms and Timberlands More Efficiently This photo of cotton crop damage from Hurricane Harvey near Houston was captured on September 21, 2017. (Photo by Lance Cheung courtesy of USDA) Drought damage in Iowa was widespread along the US Highway 30 corridor in September 2020.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjA2NTE0Mw==