[Pollinator] NAPPC Symposium Covered on the USDA Blog

[Jennifer Tsang]

Thanks to Doug Holy of the USDA NRCS for forwarding along this blog article
on the NAPPC Symposium on Wednesday, October 20th at the Jefferson
Auditorium at the USDA in Washington DC.

 

http://blogs.usda.gov/2010/10/25/creating-pollinator-habitat-on-america%E2%8
0%99s-working-lands/

 

Creating
<http://blogs.usda.gov/2010/10/25/creating-pollinator-habitat-on-america%e2%
80%99s-working-lands/>  Pollinator Habitat on America's Working Lands

Posted by Sarah <http://blogs.usda.gov/author/bfrank/>  Graddy, Natural
Resources Conservation Service, on October 25, 2010 at 3:25 PM 

 

Without pollinators like this honey bee, there would be no apples,
blueberries, strawberries, chocolate, almonds, melons, pumpkins and many
other tasty foods!

Last week I went to a North American
<http://pollinator.org/nappc/index.html>  Pollinator Partnership (NAPPC)
symposium at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's South Building, just off
the National Mall. NAPPC <http://pollinator.org/nappc/index.html>  is
celebrating 10 years of existence, and the symposium made up day one of
NAPPC <http://pollinator.org/nappc/index.html> 's three-day, annual
conference, the focus of which this year is "Why Pollinators Matter:
Benefits, Challenges, and Outcomes."

NAPPC <http://pollinator.org/nappc/index.html>  is a federation made up of
more than 120 partners, including USDA <http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/> 's
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The organization encourages
the sharing of research about pollinators, raises awareness about
pollinator-related issues and undertakes initiatives to help pollinators.

Three-fourths of the world's flowering plants rely on pollinators to
survive. Pollinators are a crucial component of our food supply and are key
to the existence of many other important fuel and fiber crops (like cotton).
Without pollinators like bees, butterflies, and beetles, some scientists
estimate that at least one out of every three bites of food we eat would not
exist. And of course, pollinators are an important part of healthy
ecosystems.

One interesting presentation I saw at the symposium was NRCS
<http://pollinator.org/nappc/index.html>  Chief Dave White's. He shared how
our agency has contributed to the effort to ensure the continued existence
of pollinators.

When the 2008
<http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/farmbill2008?navid=FARMBILL2008>  Farm
Bill was being crafted in the U.S. Congress, Chief White and others ensured
that pollinators and their health and habitat were accounted for-a Farm Bill
first. The idea was to increase pollinator populations by helping farmers
and ranchers create and maintain pollinator habitat nationwide.

This meant that farmers seeking funding from NRCS
<http://pollinator.org/nappc/index.html> ' programs to implement
conservation programs on their land would get extra points on their
applications if they proposed including pollinator habitat in their
conservation plans.

On these working lands, examples of pollinator habitat include wildflower
hedgerows, wildflower plantings around the base of orchard trees,
wildflowers used as a cover crop to protect fallow land from erosion and
wildflower buffers next to rivers and wetlands to help protect water
quality. NRCS <http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/> ' 27 Plant Materials Centers
<http://plant-materials.nrcs.usda.gov/>  are busy finding the best
region-specific native pollinator plantings for farmers across the U.S.

Chief White says he is full of burgeoning confidence in the future of
pollinators. With continuing collaboration among NAPPC
<http://pollinator.org/nappc/index.html>  partners on pollinator issues,
lots of new research studies about pollinators and growing public interest
in pollinators, it's easy to see why.

Tags: Conservation <http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/conservation/> , Dave White
<http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/dave-white/> , DC.
<http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/dc/> , Farm Bill
<http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/farm-bill/> , NAPPC
<http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/nappc/> , North
<http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/north-american-pollinator-partnership/>  American
Pollinator Partnership, NRCS <http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/nrcs/> , Washington
<http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/washington/> 

 

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