The California Agricultural Pollinator Project is a first of its kind effort to bring native bees back to large scale agriculture.

Restoring Native Pollinators
In 2003 the Xerces Society began a collaboration with scientists from the UC Berkeley, sharing the results of their research on crop pollination by native bees with growers and conservationists throughout California. Early in this effort, the Center for Land-Based Learning (CLBL) and Audubon California's Landowner Stewardship Program hosted workshops, developed a pollinator habitat demonstration hedgerow at the Farm on Putah Creek, and began to incorporate pollinator conservation measures into their restoration projects throughout Yolo County, California.

Specifically, bees need abundant nectar and pollen throughout the year in order to thrive. To meet this need, project partners are providing a diverse buffet of flowering plants that studies have shown are attractive to native bees. Nest blocks and large areas of consistently untilled soil ensure that native bees have areas to nest in.

All the while, Xerces Society staff are sharing the importance of native bees and findings from this and other relevant studies with farmers, agricultural professionals, and conservation nonprofits working in the Putah and Cache Creek watersheds.

These early efforts led to grants from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) in 2006 to implement and monitor the effectiveness of pollinator restoration activities on farms throughout Yolo County. Farmers are working with Audubon California’s Landowner Stewardship Program and high school students from CLBL's SLEWS program to implement site specific pollinator restoration plans for their farms. Scientists from the Xerces Society and UC Berkeley are reviewing these plans and monitoring these restoration sites to document how effective they are in bringing back native bees and restoring pollination services to the landscape. Additionally, they are training local citizens as “citizen scientists” to identify pollinators and monitor sites.

Tthe California Agricultural Pollinator Project is being implemented out of the Xerces satellite office at the Farm on Putah Creek. If you have further questions, please contact: Katharina Ullmann, California Pollinator Conservation Coordinator, at katharina@xerces.org.

To learn more about how to provide habitat for crop-pollinating native bees, please view Xerces Publications about agricultural pollinators.

Partner Links:

Funders:
This project has been generously funded by the following organizations: California NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant, NRCS National Fish and Wildlife Grant, CS Fund, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, Gaia Foundation, Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, and Columbia Foundation.