Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: New proposal to help farmers, native plants, and pollinators

December 4, 2018

 

Farm subsidies are a controversial, yet persistent, federal program. Because of the current trade war with China and others, the US Department of Agriculture plans to spend up to $12 billion to purchase surplus crops and compensate farmers who take land out of production due to falling crop prices.

 

University of Arizona professor Gary Nabhan recently proposed that some of those funds be used to pay farmers to plant native plants and create pollinator habitat instead of leaving farmland fallow.

 

By planting natives, Nabham notes that farmers will “help restore lifesaving habitat for monarch butterflies and bumblebees—saving these critical species from extinction, and protecting the future of American agriculture [by increasing wild pollinator populations].”

 

This is not a new concept. Since 2008, the Xerces Society (a NPCC Cooperating organization) has trained more than 120,000 farm professionals in pollinator habitat conservation and restoration. Others have been trained in workshops by the federal government, universities and non-profits. According to Mace Vaughan of Xerces, those efforts have helped restore more than a half million acres of native plant communities on U.S. farms. Further, a 2016 Iowa farm survey revealed that a quarter of farmers would be willing to plant native plants, if they could receive reimbursements for planting and maintaining pollinator habitats

 

Read the full article on the Nabhan proposal.