Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
1585 E 13TH AVE
EUGENE,OR 97403
Performing Department
Institute Ecology & Evolution
Non Technical Summary
This research aims to improve food security and biodiversity by identifying incentives and barriers to the adoption of bee-friendly agricultural land management practices. Managed and wild bees contribute over $15 billion in pollination services to United States agriculture, yet both populations are rapidly declining. A key contributor to these declines is the loss of healthy and diverse forage. Incentivizing land managers to adopt bee-friendly management practices such as forage plantings and reduced pesticide use can directly increase food security and pollinator health.I hypothesize that geographic, economic, and social factors determine the extent to which such practices are adopted. Understanding these factors will help researchers, land managers, and policy makers create region-specific pollinator strategies that strengthen bee and farm resilience. To test my hypothesis, I will focus on almond growers in three distinct regions of California's Central Valley. Almonds require bee pollination to fruit and over two million honeybee colonies are shipped to California almond orchards each spring to supply pollination services. Given their reliance on managed bees, growers have an incentive to adopt bee-friendly practices. Through in-depth interviews and surveys, I will investigate how the adoption of bee-friendly practices varies by region, operation size, and water access. I will conduct this work in collaboration with the Almond Board, beekeepers, bee advocacy non-profits, and UC Riverside ecologists. This proposal addresses the following 2014 AFRI priority areas: Plant Health and Production and Plant Products and Agricultural Economics and Rural Communities, and meets the EWD objective of advancing science in agriculture.
Animal Health Component
90%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
90%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
This research aims to improve food security and biodiversity by identifying incentives and barriers to the adoption ofbee-friendly agricultural land management practices. Managed and wild bees contribute over $15 billion in pollinationservices to United States agriculture, yet both populations are rapidly declining. A key contributor to these declines is the lossof healthy and diverse forage. Incentivizing land managers to adopt bee-friendly management practices such as forageplantings and reduced pesticide use can directly increase food security and pollinator health.I hypothesize that geographic, economic, and social factors determine the extent to which such practices are adopted.Understanding these factors will help researchers, land managers, and policy makers create region-specific pollinatorstrategies that strengthen bee and farm resilience. To test my hypothesis, I will focus on almond growers in three distinctregions in the north, central, and southern counties in California's Central Valley. Almonds require bee pollination to fruit andover two million honeybee colonies are shipped to California almond orchards each spring to supply pollination services.Given their reliance on managed bees, growers have an incentive to adopt bee-friendly practices.This research is driven by three primary research questions:What factors encourage bee-dependent growers to adopt practices that support managed and wild pollinators on theirorchards?What factors stand in the way of adoption?How do these barriers and incentives to adoption vary by regional geography?Through in-depth interviews and a survey, I will investigate how the adoption of bee-friendly practices varies by region,operation size, and water access. I will conduct this work in collaboration with the Almond Board, beekeepers, bee advocacynon-profits, and UC Riverside ecologists. I will use this information to help inform regionally and economically sensitivepollinator best management practices for pollinator-dependent growers.
Project Methods
Overview: A mixed-methods approach utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods can best test these hypotheses about which factors hinder or encourage growers to adopt bee-friendly practices on their farms. The practices I will primarily focus on are: (1) growing cover crops to provide healthy and diverse forage for honey and native bees; (2) planting permanent habitat for native bees through plantings such as hedgerows; and (3) using bee-friendly pesticide practices.The first phase of research will entail site visits and semi-structured interviews with growers to ask about the barriers and incentives detailed above. These interviews will help inform the survey instrument design. After the survey has been conducted, I will analyze the survey and disseminate the results to stakeholders.Research sites: To understand if regional geography plays a role in shaping the barriers and incentives, I will interview and survey growers from three Central Valley counties: Butte (northern), Stanislaus (central), and Kern (south) counties. Kern and Stanislaus counties are the first and third top almond producing counties in California, and both rely extensively on out-of-state managed bees. Butte County is the 8th largest almond producer in the state. I have listed each county's bearing almond acreage, percent of total almond crop produced, and average annual rainfall in Table 1. The rainfall in Butte county is nearly four times that of Stanislaus and Kern counties, and I predict this plays a factor in pesticide practices and forage adoption.Grower Selection: The growers from these three counties will be stratified across four operation size categories used by the USDA and Almond Board. For each operation size, I will interview 1% of the growers who fall into each of the farm size categories detailed in Table 2. The USDA currently estimates a total of 6,000 almond growers across the Central Valley, so the total numbers reflect 1% of 6000 in each category (see Table 2). These would be equally distributed throughout each of the three counties (i.e. 20 growers in each county) to allow for a strong enough sample to observe geographic and social trends. Half of the growers (30) will be enrolled in a labeling or forage program to track differences between these growers in their perceptions of the barriers and incentives to the adoption of bee-friendly practices. The 30 growers enrolled in the programs would be selected through the identified stakeholders mentioned and stratified by acreage size. The 30 growers not enrolled would be randomly selected from a list of grower contact information supplied by the county extension specialists, the Almond Board, and county permit lists if necessary.Pollinator Practices and Stakeholders: To identify which pollinator practices to track, I will collaborate with organizations that promote and/or support bee-friendly practices. I will gather input on which bee-friendly management practices are required for involvement in their organization or are promoted as bee BMPs.Activity 1: Survey of Growers (COMPLETED): The survey questionnaire was developed based on input from key stakeholder collaborators. To test the questionnaire and weed out common survey pitfalls (double-barrel questions, non-mutually exclusive answer choices, etc.), we first sought feedback from a small focus group of growers convened from each county. Based on their input, the questionnaire was revised for clarity, length, consistency and content. The survey instrument was then be piloted with a larger group of 20-30 growers selected from existing interview contacts and as identified by key stakeholder collaborators. The instrument was then again revised.The final survey questionnaire link was mailed on a postcard (plus a scannableQR code) to 3000 randomly selected growers in all three counties, distributed equally among each. Mailing addresses were identified through publicly available registries of pesticide use registrations maintained by the county agricultural commissioners. Survey responses were digitized for statistical analysis using R. Using Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs), we assessed whether and to what extent economic, geographic, and social factors affect the likelihood that growers will or will not adopt bee BMPs.Activity 2: Interviews During my in-depth interviews and site visits, I will have a set of standardized questions including firm acreage, firm management arrangement (e.g. owner/operator or lessee?), number of employees, and type of contractual arrangement the grower has with their beekeeper as well as how long they been working with them. I will then discuss the barriers to adopting the bee BMPs. Example questions might include: "What time of day do you typically apply fungicides? Why is that the best time for your firm?" or "Have you considered planting a cover crop that would bloom during almond bloom? What might make that difficult for you/your firm?" I will then inquire about what might incentivize them to adopt or enroll in bee best management practices or certification programs, ranging from strict bee-friendly labeling certificate programs, to contract requirements from beekeepers during almond bloom, to the suggested Pesticide BMPs promoted by the Almond Board, for which there is no punitive incentive to comply. Interviews should take approximately 90 minutes. Interviews will be transcribed by an external contractor (Rev.com). All transcribed interviews will then be anonymized with identifiers (such as names and contact information) and stored in an encrypted database separate from the interview data, according to an IRB protocol. Anonymized transcriptions will then be exported into Atlas.ti, coded, and analyzed. Responses to these questions will be categorized and used to inform decisions about question wording, language, and range of possible answer choices in development of the survey questionnaire.Activity 3: Disseminate results to stakeholders: This research will generate data on the incentives and barriers to adopting pollinator management strategies. After analyzing the interviews and survey responses, I will analyze the data for patterns about barriers and incentives across regions and compile a summary report for stakeholders. The report will be disseminated to my U of Oregon colleagues and research collaborators: Xerces Society, Pollinator Partnership, Seeds for Bees, and the Almond Board.