49 A $7 million investment in pollinator health by the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research (FFAR) (in English)

Speaker 1: From the Oregon State University Extension Service, this is Pollination, a podcast that tells the stories of researchers, land managers, and concerned citizens making bold strides to improve the health of pollinators. I'm your host, Dr. Adoni Melopoulos, assistant professor in pollinator health in the Department of Horticulture. Exciting news dear listeners, last month the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research announced a $7 million investment through their Pollinator Health Fund. This has resulted in 16 projects across the United States that are designed to understand how different stressors affect pollinator health, develop best management practices for land managers and beekeepers in the public on how to take these principles and put them into practice, taking new technology and applying it to the problem of pollinator health and really enhancing our outreach and education. I'm really happy to be joined by Dr. Sally Rocky, who is the inaugural executive director of the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. She's going to tell us a little bit about where the Pollinator Health Fund came from, how it set its goals, and some of the exciting projects that are taking place across the U.S., including here in Oregon. So sit back and enjoy this episode on how to kickstart innovation through smart investment in research and extension. All right, Dr. Rocky, welcome to Pollination.

Thanks for having me. Okay, it was really exciting news this month to hear about the $7 million investment in pollinator health by the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. I know a lot of people have asked me what is FAR and how did the Pollinator Health Fund come into being?

Speaker 2: Well, FAR or the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research was established in 2014 through bipartisan congressional support to fund innovation research with a new model. And that model was that we are to develop public-private partnership to advance agriculture, and we match every dollar that we received out of the Farm Bill with outside resources that are non-federal. So it's a dollar-for-dollar match, which provides a really great value to the taxpayer and allows us to partner with very innovative groups where we share the same goals and objectives for funding the forefront of innovation.

And the organization itself is very innovative, and Congress really should be commended for thinking creatively to support this. For the Pollinator Health Fund, one of the most challenging and exciting parts of FAR's mission is that we are charged to identify what we call white spaces and gaps for opportunities in science where challenges facing agriculture isn't being done elsewhere. And in the case of this program, we felt that to really move the needle on pollinator health, we wanted to look at a couple of important areas and open the floor to basically crowdsourcing for the best ideas in these areas. And we consider the topic, of course, of pollinators and pollinator health to be vital to agriculture and to the success of the U.S. agriculture. So that's how we got here.

Speaker 1: There's been a lot of research over the past decade, especially since colony collapse disorder in 2006 around pollinator health. What were the priorities for FAR specifically and how to kind of take this next step in pollinator health to go beyond what had been done before?

Speaker 2: Right. So we agree that was a very important time when we had colony collapse. And we wanted to say, again, what are those white spaces and gaps? So we worked with the USDA and others to try to figure out what are areas where we could have actionable outcomes.

In other words, where we could fund research that was going to have an immediate impact on the enterprise. And so we developed four areas within our pollinator health, which was the first was understanding the multiple interacting stressors. So oftentimes in the case of pollinators and their health, we look at particular stressors. So for example, is there heat stress?

Is there a particular pesticide that might impact them? So in this case, we thought, what could we do to look at it at a more system level and how the multiple factors would end within an environment and how we could understand the relationships between these different issues, whether or not it be nutrition or environmental factors. And that way we could unlock new knowledge about promoting healthy pollinators.

The second area was developing best management practices. So you know that we rely on pollinators and our agricultural practices to pollinate many of our important economic crops and also for land managers and even suburban home homeowners. And all of that can be done together to improve health, where we think about what we're doing now and how changing practices can either promote pollinator health or make be detrimental to those to pollinator health. So we wanted to see a way that we could examine practices that are ongoing and share those practices with others to find out what's meaningful and then actionable.

And actually in our program, we probably got the most applications in this area in developing best management practices that are going to promote that health. The third area was technology transfer. So there's a lot of cutting edge things that are going on in the world that we live in now, particularly in the area of data and data technologies and new applications that can be used. And so you potentially can have new decision support tools for landowners and managers or think of how we could train through digital means and new novel approaches to pest management. So we wanted to look at where there could be potential for taking those new technologies and getting them out there and use. And finally, the last area was really outreach and education.

And again, we got quite a few applications in this area. One of the most exciting parts of that is that this is for what we call everyday citizens or citizen scientists, really, and everybody can participate in helping promote pollinator health, even in their own backyards. So some of these projects involve citizen science to try to get the community excited about this or where they can have information that they can apply and actually put into practice.

And this is one of the components that I personally am very passionate about. We are as a promotion for launching our pollinator health and announcing the awards. We're in the process of giving away mixes of pollinator seeds that we had very kindly donated to us.

And that's our way that we can get anyone who would like some of those seeds to come and get them from us and start growing plants that will promote pollinators.

Speaker 1: I really like the way in which the the actual on the ground practices. It seems like there was a real gap between and continues to be because it's such a challenge to being able to connect the interaction between these stressors and actual changes on the ground that people, you know, we always get people who come up to us and want to know what to do. And this really does address that problem.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's over our all in many areas of science, but particularly as you suggest in pollinator health, this holistic approach is really what's going to get us there. So none of these issues exist in isolation.

I'm I can, you know, we can all work together. But I was just thinking about, for example, when people use pivot irrigation, you know, you make a big circle when you fly over the United States, you look down and you see those big circles of where crops are pivoted, use pivot of irrigation. And in the corners of each one of those fields, which are square, there's a little triangle, right, that could be a very useful place to put pollinator pollinator promoting plants.

And if we could get those practices, though, if a farmer has uses pivot irrigation versus drip irrigation, that might make a difference for where they can plant pollinator plant, different kinds of species of plants that are going to promote pollinators. So, you know, even something as simple as that. But if you if you don't think about it holistically, oftentimes it's hard to think about all those solutions and understand really what all those manager practices are.

Speaker 1: And that's such a great point, because, you know, when we talk to land managers, they are really smart and they have a lot of equipment and technical knowledge and can really, for example, take those corners in a field that are not irrigated and quickly turn them into pollinator habitat if they have the right information. If they knew, oh, yeah, if I did X, Y and Z, it would work. Then that would make it a lot easier for them.

Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. And so I'm excited about those things. So the more that we can do on the holistic approach and then get the information out there, the more likely we can make some real headway in promoting pollinator.

Speaker 1: Well, we'll put a link to how to get the seed packets in the show notes for anybody who's interested. That's great. Just thinking about the pollinator health fund into the future. So what's next? Yeah.

Speaker 2: So we're in the midst right now of awarding these grants, which totals about $7 million of our investment. And then, of course, invested by our partners in this area. And so we're now currently with our board and our staff and our advisory councils laying out our future for the foundation. A lot will depend on our future of refunding and the next farm bill, but we'll keep the community updated on opportunities for pollinator health. This is a very critical area for us, and we can be certain that we're going to keep up with these grants that we've made and to see how it evolves for the future. Great.

Speaker 1: Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back. And I wanted to ask a little bit more about the actual projects that were funded. OK, great. All right. Well, welcome back.

You know, one thing you mentioned at the beginning of the interview, Dr. Rocky was how far. Is an innovative model for how to fund things like pollinator health? Could you expand on that? Sure.

Speaker 2: We were formed in the image of a number of foundations that are associated with a federal agency. So there are a number of agencies such as the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the Fish and Wildlife Service, who have associated 501c3 charitable nonprofit organizations, and that's what we are. But the USDA never had one. So this was an attempt to, and actually a realization to have the USDA have a foundation associated with it. We are a little different than some of these other foundations in that we were given $200 million of federal funds to our foundation. And that means that not only are we the fundraising arm for the USDA and work to see that the USDA's research mission is accomplished, but we're also an independent organization because we have our own funds. And because those federal funds have to be coupled with non-federal funds through private public partnerships, we're actually designing the research portfolio and the research pie bigger. And because for every dollar that we have, we double that with other dollars. It also allows us the opportunity to look for great partners who share our goals and want to come to the table not only with their innovative ideas for research, but with funding that can be coupled with our funding and put together into a really innovative program.

Speaker 1: Oh, that's fantastic. I know there are a lot of exciting projects that were funded, including two projects here in Oregon. Can you give the listeners a sense of the breadth of projects?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it was really, really exciting. We had projects funded all the way, as you said, in Oregon, all the way from New Hampshire to Florida to California. And it's great because agricultural challenges are often very regionally specific. But what we learn in pollinators can oftentimes be applied to across the entire country and in fact, across the world. So the results you're leading to address unique, agronomical challenges in the Pacific Northwest, where there's a large variety of specialty crops, means that one site set all approach is impossible and you really have to look at all these different approaches in order to manage that.

So just a couple of other examples beyond what's going on at Oregon. You know, remember, we talked about looking at management practices and where those are going to impact pollinator health. So we're funding the Virginia Polytech Institute and State University to look at behavior in different landscapes to determine when planting supplemental forage could have the most positive effect on pollinator nutrition. So that's an example of how you're looking at management practices or where you work at the Pennsylvania State University, which is a really big team of researchers from Penn State, Minnesota, California, Davis and Dickinson colleges to develop an online decision support tool to help beekeepers and growers and plant producers, land managers and gardeners better select and manage diverse landscapes. So that's also often times, as we said, very complicated when there's many different types of landscapes. So how you do that to manage wild bee populations at the University of Kentucky, another example of a management practice. Usually at the moment there's a siren going by, I am in DC.

So that happens a lot. But at the University of Kentucky, there's research where cover cropping practices are being looked at of how that will allow winter weed growth that can actually help pollinator habitat. And then we're looking at quite a few of technological advances in the area of either ways to look at how pesticides are infecting pollinator health or how we control borough. And then finally, we're doing things with public schools such as at Purdue University, where we're actually developing public school curriculum and training of high school teachers. So that was a, as you remember, that was a big area to do public outreach. And because this can be citizen science and can be done by anybody to promote pollinator health, that's a really important aspect of it.

Speaker 1: That's right. These are really practical on the ground problem solving project, shoring up of all the work that we've done over the last decade into something really practical. This is wonderful. Now, we're really, we're really excited to hear a pollination because part of the Oregon Grant is supporting episodes that provide example of people who are actually doing these initiatives on the ground. I just wanted to ask about why education outreach is such an important part of a broader strategy towards pollinator health. Yeah.

Speaker 2: For anyone that's responsible for a piece of land, whether it be in your garden or a farm or a ranch or your own backyard, you know, you can make a difference here. So that's very rare in our world of agriculture that it's going to impact every single person that I, you know, by, by promoting pollinator health in my backyard could actually have an impact on agriculture around the area.

It's really important. So yes, I come from actually a research background, but I did work for Extension for a year and I was a field scout and ran the community guards in Columbus, Ohio back in the 80s. And I worked directly with producers and I know how much it's important for land managers and landowners and farmers to be able to get information as quickly as possible that they can apply onto their farms. You know, particularly of late farmers are, are really interested in science and science findings that can help them better manage.

So that piece is very important. And then because the public plays such an important role in this pollinator health, it's important to be able to educate the public as well. And many of times, and you've seen in pollinator health, it's really a grass root and that's also, I think, rare in agriculture. But this has been, most everyone knows about pollinators.

We see them oftentimes in the public press and in the public and media. So this is a great opportunity to take the collective power of the public and their, their interest in this area and harness it for research purposes. So it's been wonderful.

Speaker 1: That's really well put. Let's take a break. I have some questions that I ask all our guests and I'm really curious what your answers, those questions will be. OK, great.

All right, well, welcome back. So we have, we have these questions we ask all our guests and we haven't had somebody from a funding agency to ask these questions to. So I'm really curious how you're going to answer them. The first question is, is there a book? Is there a book is influential? You want people to know about?

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I would, I would, there's two books that actually influence me. Not necessarily pollinators, one on entomology and one on pollinators. So when I was in the, my grandmother used to always ask me to take books off her shelf because she was always trying on low books and I never really took the book. And when I first started graduate school, I'm an entomologist. So I, when I first started graduate school, she was on me to look at her books again.

And I said, all right, I'll look at them. And I found a book by Jean-Henri Habre from the famous French entomologist. And it was, it was published back in the early 1900s and it was the most beautiful book. And it was just called Habre's Book of Insects. And it had, it just talked about insects. And it had beautiful plates that had onion skin paper over these beautiful photographs and illustrations of insects. And it was one of the most stunning, and I have that on display at my home.

Of course, I said to my grandmother, I'll be happy to take this one off your hand. But it was, it just, it just was magical because not only in a scientific, technical sense, when he wrote about insects, but the beauty of insects and the wonder of insects by these just amazing, beautiful drawings and plates that were in the book. So that one that is always on so heartfelt in the area of honeybees. You probably know this book very well, but Thomas Thiele wrote the book on on Honeybee democracy back in the early 2000s or 2000s.

Maybe, maybe 10 years ago, I can't remember when the book was published. But that was such a fascinating book because he talked about honeybees and how they make collective decisions. And, you know, it was really sort of like an amazing story of house hunting, you know, that how, how honeybees find their way and how they do some sort of demographic, democratic sort of debate about where they're going to go speak out their foods. And he, if in that book, if you recall, he, he talked a little bit about how the way honeybees make their decisions would be also applicable to humans. And that, you know, that how we as leaders can think about how honeybees do things and how you have to have mutual respect for each other's decisions and how you could use debate on how, where you should go and what you should do in order to make better decisions. And I love that. I love that connection between how honeybees work and how humans make their decisions. So that was a great book. And that was called Honeybee democracy.

Speaker 1: Well, those are two great suggestions. And the one thing I think in regard to both books, when you read Fabre, there's a real kind of curiosity about the world. And it kind of reads as like a continuous examination of things. And I think Tom Seely's work is very similar.

He's got a really sustained question and the book unfolds that question in a way that is, to me, is really remarkable to that, you know, we often we're working on very discreet projects, but these are really kind of really curiosity driven. Right.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. And I think that's a great point. And both those books that, you know, I mean, I remember when I read Honeybee democracy, I was now out of agriculture and working at the National Institute for Health. And I love to keep up with things that stimulate my mind in the bug world. I guess it's like being an entomologist. And it's interesting about because insects, social insects are so important that so many entomologists also bridge social issues in humans. And I love that, you know, Eisner and here in Tom Seely and, you know, and Paul Irwin and everyone, it just seems like it's a place where, where because we study social insects, we're also understanding sociology and society in humans.

Speaker 1: The second question I have for you is, is there a tool that you use to work with pollinators? And I guess, and far as your tool.

Speaker 2: Yeah. That's, I know there's, I mean, I'm not very familiar with the tools in pollinators, but I do know there's things like new apps that are coming along all the time. Well, first of all, there's great apps that help you identify plants.

And that I love. I use those all the time because I often, often time have weeds in my garden and things or I'm out in the woods and I'm like, what is that plant? So they, I know I believe there's some apps which have taken that to help you decide what plants you should plant for your area and your weather and all of that for pollinators. I'm not sure what they're called, but I know there's a couple of them. And they're one like, um, be smart or something like that.

I can't remember. I read something about it where you can put in your information about your area and it tells you what kind of plants are good to promote pollinators and pollinate your health. So those things, um, you know, I think it's, it's, it's just such a great time with millennial thinking about building at all the time that you can do just about anything on an app. So being able to promote pollinators is also probably pretty easy on an app as well. Yeah.

Speaker 1: It's really nice to reduce this, you know, the, you know, we often talk about just basic V taxonomy. It can be a real barrier to people bridge that gap, you know, years of study, but an app can really take that intimidation out of it and really put people to work and boring the world. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And apps make it so much easier than how to have to use to have to identify insects in the old days, you know, under a microscope. But now you just do a decision support tree and you can get down to the kind of species that you have even.

Speaker 1: Oh, that's a great answer. The last question we have, is there a pollinator, a specific pollinator that when you see it's just like, Oh, I love seeing that thing.

Speaker 2: Well, ironically, my favorite pollinator is a hummingbird.

Speaker 1: Oh, no, that's good. Pollination.

Speaker 2: I love birds. I'm a big bird fan among, along with insect fans. And I just love honeybee, honeybees and bumblebees and everything. But when I think about pollinators, my mind always goes to the hummingbird. And I have hummingbird feeders. I love to see hummingbirds, but I also think about how important they are to us in the pollination world, even though it's primarily flowers that they're, they're not generally a pollinating economically important crops, but they are pollinating a lot of our flowers. And I just love seeing them and how they work. And they're just an incredible feed of.

Speaker 1: How they've been doing out east this year. And it's been a cold year. Probably been a bigger feeders.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, we'll see how it goes. It's been such a strange weather year. I'm not sure how anything's going to work this year, whether it's going to, although I've already seen the stink bugs all over my house. The weather doesn't seem to bother them.

Speaker 1: Well, it's been a delight talking to you. And really looking forward to all of these projects and all the great tools that they're going to develop.

Speaker 2: Yes. And so am I. And I look forward to hearing from you again once we see some of the results and from the rest of these great teams.

Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. Show notes with information discussed in each episode can be found at pollinationpodcast.oregonstate.edu. We'd also love to hear from you and there are several ways to connect. For one, you can visit our website to post an episode-specific comment, suggest a future guest or topic, or ask a question that can be featured in a future episode. You can also email us at [email protected]. Finally, you can tweet questions or comments or join our Facebook or Instagram communities. Just look us up at OSU pollinator health. If you like the show, consider letting iTunes know by leaving us a review or rating.

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