Pollinators and Biodiversity

At Illinois Farm Bureau®, we understand the importance of pollinators to our food system and to the ecosystem overall. IFB has continued to embark on a campaign to educate our membership about the latest science involving pollinators, the best management practices that are proven to protect pollinators, and the technical information needed to create and improve habitat for pollinators on farms.

As part of our ongoing support of pollinator initiatives, we have developed and compiled several resources related to the Pollinator Resources, Monarch Butterfly, and Pollinator Partnerships.

Pollinator Resources

Pollinators, the busy bees behind the scenes, are essential for sustainability of our ecosystems and natural resources. Additional benefits documented from creating pollinator habitats include supporting populations of birds, improving water quality by reducing nutrients and sediment in runoff, and providing forage for livestock. To learn more about pollinators, their importance to agriculture, and what Illinois farmers are doing to protect pollinators, view the Pollinator Fact Sheet.

View the Fact Sheet

In order to help answer some of our farmer members’ questions, we have developed several resources surrounding pollinator conservation, including a Pollinator Habitat Guide for Agricultural Landscapes and Mowing for Monarchs guidance.

Habitat Implementation

The Pollinator Habitat Guide for Agricultural Landscapes was created to help farmers and landowners who are interested in implementing pollinator habitat on agricultural landscapes. This guidebook provides general information to help establish larger plots of pollinator habitat on these lands, such as on smaller corners and edges of production fields. For a condensed version of the Pollinator Habitat Guide, see the Pollinator Habitat Handout.

Pollinator Habitat Guide | Pollinator Habitat Handout

Mowing Resources

The Illinois Monarch Project (IMP) Mowing Guidance was created by a collation of scientists and eleven organizations and agencies in Illinois to help Illinois residents and land managers provide food and habitat for pollinators. The Mowing Guidance documents outline recommendations on mowing practices that best protect pollinators as they migrate through or live out their lives in Illinois.

Mowing Guidelines Flyer | View the Flipbook

Monarch Butterfly

What Can You Do?

On December 15th, 2020, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced its decision on listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Their decision was that it was warranted but precluded, which means they found the monarch butterfly justified listing, but other species priorities needed to be addressed first, and the USFWS didn't have the resources to devote to a listing proposal for the monarch butterfly until 2024. This means the monarch butterfly is a candidate species and is not protected under the endangered species act; however, it will be reviewed annually to see if it warrants emergency listing. For more information about the decision, see https://www.fws.gov/savethemonarch/.

IFB has been actively involved in conservation planning efforts surrounding the monarch butterfly and other pollinators here in Illinois for a number of years.

This includes serving on the technical steering committee of the Illinois Monarch Project as well as other county and state-level projects.

Illinois Monarch Project – Agriculture Sector

The decline of the monarch population is a complex issue. There is no single solution to the problem, but by working together, groups, businesses and individuals can help increase monarch populations to sustainable levels.

Illinois agriculture has had numerous successes in sustaining monarchs in the recent past. These successes have centered around education and outreach, habitat work, and science and research. Education stemming from many years of collaborative work across the state has increased awareness of the monarch issue to farmers, city residents and land managers up and down the state. Illinois farmers have been installing and improving pollinator habitat on their farms for years and the monarchs and many other pollinators are seeing those benefits. Illinois has one of the highest adoption rates for installation of pollinator habitat acreage through the CRP, ranking second only to Iowa. From 2012 to 2018, the acres enrolled in the CP42-Pollinator Habitat practice has increased by more than 300 times, resulting in more than 100,000 acres of habitat across the state.

The following resources were produced by a variety of Illinois stakeholders to provide additional detail about our work on this important issue:

Additional Resources

Pollinator Partnerships

Illinois Farm Bureau® is committed to working with County Farm Bureaus® (CFB) and their members to support a wide variety of pollinator conservation efforts. One example of this work included collaborating with Cook CFB to develop a series of video tour of pollinator conservation in Cook County, with a range of involvement in agriculture. Please watch these videos to see some of the many practices being implemented to conserve pollinators.

Stuenkel Family Farms: Pollinators for the Agricultural Landscape