(NAFB.com) – For the first time, farmers and ranchers bought crop insurance policies on more than 500 million acres of land last year. The buying push was driven by the surging popularity of forage policies. Enrollment in crop insurance was up 85 percent between 2016 and 2023. USDA data says in 2021, insured acreage had grown to 444.5 million acres, and 40 percent of it was covered by a forage policy. Enrollment rose to 493.8 million acres in 2022 and to 539.5 million acres in 2023. To put that in perspective, there are almost 880 million acres in U.S. farms. “A decade ago, crop insurance covered around 290-295 million acres annually and field crops accounted for more than 75 percent of insured acres,” wrote economist Dylan Turner in USDA’s Amber Waves magazine. “Forage crops now make up an increasing portion of those acres.” Forage crops reached 40 percent of insured acres in 2021.