D3487: Facilitating a farmer-led outreach event on improving farm resilience with pollinator habitat

Many Midwestern farmers are becoming increasingly interested in strategies to strengthen the resilience of their farms. One of these strategies includes conserving on-farm biodiversity, which often provides additional benefits to the land, such as erosion control, reduced runoff, and pest predation. In southern Wisconsin, we facilitated an outreach event in which farmers presented to other farmers about their experiences managing pollinator-friendly habitats on their farms. Farmers led discussions on restored prairies, flowering cover crops, and pollinator-friendly plants in pastures. In addition, various governmental and nonprofit organizations participated in a resources fair during the event to provide support to farmers interested in adding pollinator habitats to their farms.

Farmers, landowners, and agricultural educators from throughout southern Wisconsin attended the outreach event. Attendees’ main questions and concerns centered around the logistics and upkeep of installing pollinator habitats, as well as best approaches for motivating their neighbors to implement similar practices. Overall, attendees most enjoyed touring the prairie on site, hearing from farmers' perspectives, and connecting with other conservation-minded farmers and educators in the region.