OCTOBER 2018 SEEDWORLD.COM / 47 TIP trust among stakeholder groups, and it’s been great to see people understand why this is important.” Measuring Success “We all know how important pollinators are,” Jones says. “We need them for a better fruit set, especially with cucum- bers and other crops. The more we talk about these initiatives, the more impact they can have.” However, it is difficult to measure the success of conservation programs. North Carolina will conduct a survey this fall to help determine if they are on the right track. They also continue to use the BeeCheck program, which can help gauge awareness. “We have 8,823 hives and 1,604 apiar- ies registered,” Jones says. “We’re doing continued outreach to applicators to get more of them signed up as well.” Challenges Kevin Paap is a corn and soybean farmer, as well as the president of Minnesota Farm Bureau. He serves on the Governor’s Pollinator Protection Committee and has seen the behind-the- scenes struggles of creating a plan. “We’ve been working for more than a year now, and it has been frustrating because we haven’t accomplished much yet,” Paap says. Paap says farmers are willing to help with pollinator habitat, and want to work on building communication with bee- keepers, but the program needs to be shaped so as to encourage buy-in. “What tends to work in agriculture is an incentive-based program that is locally designed and implemented,” he says. Minnesota is also working on educa- tion efforts on handling treated seed responsibly. “We’re working to increase awareness that seed stewardship is a good thing and also cleaning up spills and disposing of extra seed,” Paap says. Flakne says there is always some degree of funding challenges, but that it’s often mitigated at the state level by reprioritization. “If you’re building a road or bridge anyway and will be establishing new plantings, it doesn’t cost a lot more to put in pollinator friendly plants,” Flakne says. Jones says that because there is limited federal funding, states can be restricted by their own budgets. “In North Carolina, we have the Pesticide Environmental Trust Fund, and that money can be used for projects and education as approved by the Pesticide Board,” he says. In the Future Whittington would like to see more states, including Mississippi, work on more habitat conservation programs, especially within the transportation departments and power and utility areas. Planting habitat forage plots is one way to help, but other habitat efforts are as simple as tweaks to current practices. “Sometimes you can make a differ- ence with nothing more than raising the mower height to leave some of that white clover at certain times of the year,” Whittington says. He’s optimistic about where state pro- grams will go in the future. Flakne agrees. “One thing that’s important for every- one to remember is that we all care, and we’re engaged,” he says. “The concept of building trust and ensuring good commu- nication is simple, but we have to make sure we have the tools in place to broaden awareness and success.” SW It’simperativethatasanindustrywetakeaproactiveapproachinprotecting pollinators.operationpollinator.com FieldWatch helps improve communication between farmers and beekeepers by allowing them to enter their information about their fields and hives.