Pollinator habitat has many co-benefits with important conservation issues such as water quality and soil erosion. Habitat conservation and restoration opportunities may exist within local and state water quality programs, such as Soil and Water Conservation Districts. For example, the Indiana County Soil and Water Conservation Districts’ water quality grant program provided funding for agricultural pollinator habitat conservation.

That grant “will promote an incentive payment for farmers to implement a pollinator habitat on prior cropland that is adjacent to waterways and/or filter strips. The grant will also have an urban use for landowners in urban areas to purchase native Indiana pollinator seed packets to install on their own land. The seed packets will also include milkweed seeds that are imperative for the survival of the Monarch Butterflies for generations to come.

The pollinator habitat will help decrease the water runoff rate, reduce the soil erosion and slow the amount of nutrients lost as water flows to the Gulf of Mexico” (Indiana State Department of Agriculture 2016). This project runs from 2016 to 2018, in collaboration with Indiana County Soil and Water Conservation Districts Gibson, Pike, Posey and Warrick. Key partners include The Nature Conservancy, USFWS, South West Indiana Native Plant and Wildflower Society, and local apiaries (Shoup 2016).

• Indiana State Department of Agriculture. Clean Water Indiana 2016 Competitive Grants. 1. http://in.gov/isda/files/Vanderburgh_2016.pdf.
• Erin Shoup. 2016. Vanderburgh County Soil and Water Conservation District, Administrative Assistant. Personal communication.

Keywords: agriculture, habitat, restoration, urban