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Summit conservation feedback to USDA through Midwest Farm Conservation Survey

The Pollinator Partnership wants to know what motivates Midwestern farmers to implement conservation practices and how USDA programs could work better.

Director of Science and Research Vicki Wojcik tells Brownfield, “We want to know what they’re doing, what the driving factor is, and then when they’re seeking that technical side of how to do it, where that information is coming from.”

She says results from the Midwest Farm Conservation Survey could help improve the effectiveness of USDA conservation programming, like within the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

“There have been a lot of changes in what we know about pollinators, what we know about farm landscape management, and CRP is great, but it has not changed substantially in quite some time,” she says.

Wojcik says researchers also are asking for feedback on how regulatory changes for monarch butterflies and other pollinators might influence their management decisions.

The survey is open for producers in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin.