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Investing In Pollinator Conservation Through Urban Agriculture

Perennial pollinator habitat seen at Tricycle Urban Ag Farm (Photo: Nancy Lee Adamson, Xerces Society).

Xerces is working closely with the Office of Urban Ag and the People’s Garden to support the creation of demonstration habitats with PGI urban farm partners across the U.S.

By Stefanie Steele
Xerces Society
20 June 2022

Excerpt:

These urban farm sites act as excellent learning opportunities and demonstrations of the importance of biodiversity. Our society’s agricultural demand has developed to rely on European honey bees, but small urban agriculture areas offer a great opportunity to learn about other beneficial insects that are often overlooked. These beneficial insects include native solitary bees, who are often smaller than honey bees and are particularly efficient pollinators of our native plants. Predatory and parasitoid wasps are often underappreciated and are valuable in the garden as they can act as great natural biological control of other invertebrates that you may consider “pests”. Urban areas are also important for invertebrate diversity because they have been shown to help foster corridors and islands of habitat for wildlife.

Xerces has existing efforts that cross into urban agriculture through programs like Bee City/Bee Campus USA and our regional pollinator habitat kit programs. I am to expand these through a new pollinator habitat kit for specifically for small urban ag sites in the greater Detroit and Flint areas in Michigan. Our goal is to work with these urban farms to help them establish or expand on pollinator and beneficial insect habitat in their spaces. Benefits of the habitat kits will be to help increase the biodiversity present on the farms; provide nesting, shelter, and food resources for insects; attract more pollinators and beneficial insects to aid in crop yields; and act as space to increase conservation awareness in the community.

Read the complete article here.