Minnesota's new Lawns to Legumes program has garnered positive buzz nationally--and citizen involvement across the state--but five Republican Senators want to "repurpose" money appropriated for the Lawns to Legumes program to grants for local parks, trails, and natural areas.
Really. Check out SF3262.
Let's look at that buzz. There's Oprah's Live Your Best Life list:
Earlier this month, Huffpost's Kyla Mandel reported in The Climate Crisis Is Threatening Bees. Here’s What’s Helping To Save Them:
. . . It’s estimated that between $235 billion and $577 billion worth of annual food production globally relies on the pollinator services of more than 20,000 types of bees, along with birds, bats, and butterflies.
Three years ago, the rusty patched bumblebee was listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after it was found that its population across the country had declined by 90% since the 1990s. A declining bee population undermines the world’s ability to produce food. . . .
Meanwhile, in an effort aimed specifically at supporting the threatened rusty patched bumblebee, Minnesota approved a new “Lawns to Legumes” program toward the end of 2019. The program will pay out a total $900,000 each year to homeowners (up to $350 each) who replace their manicured grass lawns with pollinator-friendly wildflowers, clover and native grasses.
“I have gotten a ton of emails and so much feedback from people who are interested in this,” state Rep. Kelly Morrison, who introduced legislation implementing the program, told the Star Tribune. “People are really thinking about how they can help.”
But the buzz isn't limited to national venues. It looks as if Minnesotans across the state are embracing the program.This isn't an Evil-Metro-DFLers program.
Take Kyle Mullen's January 2020 article in the Winona Daily News, Winona Area Pollinators to host "Lawns to Legumes" session:
The Winona Area Pollinators and the Driftless Chapter of the Prairie Enthusiasts will host an informal workshop from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Jan. 25 at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse, 162 W. Second St., Winona.
The workshop is part of the "Lawns to Legumes" program from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, which offers grants and guides to transforming residential lawns into pollinator habitats with reimbursements of up to $350. . . .
Winona is represented in the Minnesota Senate by Jeremy Miller. Over in Rochester, represented by Republicans David Senjem and Carla Nelson, we read in the Rochester Bulletin John Molseed story earlier this month, City garden grants program is growing:
There are many grand reasons to plant pollinator-friendly plants. How about a grand?
A rebranded city garden program offers up to $1,000 toward material and labor costs of planting pollinator-friendly habitat.
The Rochester Garden Grants program is growing from the Realize Rochester Rain Gardens program to include other pollinator-habitat plantings.
The change updates the decade-old program to better coordinate with the state’s Board of Water and Soil Resources Lawns to Legumes program launched last year. That program offers people up to $350 in matching costs for planting pollinator-friendly plants and habitat.
The Rochester Garden Grants program will offer up to $1,000 in material and labor costs toward creating pollinator gardens and does not restrict the grants to rain garden plantings. The change gives local support to the state initiative and also makes the program more accessible. . . .
If you’re ready to help pollinators by planting habitat for them and want to learn how either the city or state programs can help, you can sign up for an application and planning workshop being held Feb. 24 at Cascade Meadow, 2900 19th St. NW. The event is free, but registration is required.
The workshop is presented by Blue Thumb and sponsored by the City of Rochester, Olmsted Soil and Water Conservation District, and Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources.
A Lawns to Legumes application workshop held in November filled up, and some people who weren’t able to register for that workshop have already signed up for this month’s event. . . .
Up in Bemidji, citizens were to meet yesterday, the Pioneer reported in Lawns to Legumes to hold native plants workshop:
The Bemidji Lawns to Legumes group will hold a residents workshop from 6 to 9 p.m. on Tue, Feb. 18, in the community room at Beltrami Electric, 4111 Technology Drive NW.
The workshop is designed for residents who want to incorporate native plants into their own yard, a release said. Attendees are asked to come with a map of their property. They will learn which native plants will attract pollinators to the yard, and how to create a ‘native pocket planting’, rain garden, or pollinator lawn.
The event is free and a light snack will be provided. Register on Eventbrite at www.eventbrite.com/e/92032097481.
This workshop is provided by Blue Thumb in partnership with Bird, Bees and Butterflies and the MN Board of Water and Soil Resources.
The Bemidji area is represented by Republicans (bill sponsor Paul Utke's district circles 3/4th of the city to the North, West, and South).
In December, Mankato CBS/Fox affiliate KEYC-TV reported in State will financially assist with a native pollinator garden:
One-third of all our food in the world is somehow connected to pollinators.
“Without those bees and insects buzzing, we’re not going to have those pickles we enjoy so much in the summertime,” Master Gardener Joyce Wilcox said.
With pollinator populations taking a stark, grim turn for the worse, the state of Minnesota incentivizing the growth of native yards or gardens.
The Lawns to Legumes Program aims to attract pollinators both near and far that are currently struggling to find food.
“A lack of habitat are a dominating factor on why we are losing them and why we are seeing declines in populations. There are other reasons too like pesticides and insecticides, but I think one thing many experts can agree on is the habitat just isn’t there anymore,” explained Becky Buchholz, a farm bill assistant and program technician at Cottonwood Soil and Water Conservation District.
Lawns to Legumes is a reimbursement program, up to $350, in order to help establish a pollinator habitat. . . .
Master Gardener Joyce Wilcox lives in Nicollet County, where she's active in the Minnesota River Valley Master Gardener group. While Mankato and Nicollet County are represented by DFLer Nick Frentz, Cottonwood County is Republican territory these days--but pollinator promotion doesn't seem to be one of those Evil Metro-only concerns, if we are to believe news reports from Greater Minnesota.
Concern for pollinators is state-wide. Last July, Crookston Times outdoor columnist Blane Lemek wrote in Did you know Minnesota has a state bee?:
Meet Minnesota’s newest member of an exclusive list of officially recognized state symbols—the rusty patched bumble bee, Minnesota’s state bee.
Other than the status such recognition grants, the official adoption of the rusty patched bumble bee as our state bee serves the dual purpose of calling attention to a species in perilous decline. In fact, the species is endangered. According to the United Sates Fish and Wildlife Service and recent Minnesota Public Radio story, the rusty patched bumble bee’s historical range has been diminished by some 90%. Only ten states are known to harbor the endangered bee, with Minnesota containing the bulk of the species’ remaining range.
The rusty patched bumble bee is a beautiful bee. Sadly, it’s the first, but hopefully the last, bee that’s been placed on the endangered species list in the U.S.′ Lower 48. Typical of bumble bees with alternating colors of yellow and black, the rusty patched bumble bee’s diagnostic feature is the small rust-colored “patch” located on the top of its abdomen. An important pollinator, as all bees are, it’s not understood why this species, once very common, is now endangered. Most experts agree that pesticides, habitat loss, and disease are primary reasons.
Surprisingly, especially when one considers the previous sentence, most populations of the rusty patched bumble occur in urban areas such as the Twin Cities, Iowa City, Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago. Moreover, a significant number of observations of the endangered bumble bee over this past year have come from the Twin Cities. Scientists speculate that because of the abundance of homeowner flower gardens in these high population centers could be a factor favoring rusty patched bumble bees.
My personal relationship and interest of insects, especially bumble bees, goes back to my childhood. Interest was piqued when I enrolled in a graduate level entomology course at the University of North Dakota many years later. And again, this spring, as I began studying bumble bees in my own backyard.
Indeed, on one recent and glorious spring weekend when the sun was shining both days and my dandelion infested lawn was brilliant yellow and full of activity from pollinating and nectar-gathering insects, including bumble bees, I began looking closer to what I was actually observing. I mean real close.
I positively identified four different species of bumble bees that included the American, tri-colored, common eastern, and two-spotted bumble bees. I also identified a species of mason bee, which I watched building its mud nests in one of the hollow bamboo shoots of the bee house I mounted next to my house last spring.
So what can we do to attract more bees to our properties? Habitat is key, but so is limiting the use of pesticides. During this past legislative session when Governor Walz signed into law the official status of the rusty patched bumble bee, other legislation passed and signed was a grant program that sets aside $900,000 to provide cost-share assistance to qualifying homeowners to incorporate pollinator habitat to their properties.
The program, called “Lawns to Legumes”, while not currently up and running, will be available for applications in the coming months by the Board of Water Resources (BWSR) . A quick check online details the program, but asks visitors to check the webpage for updates as the program is further developed and ready to accept applications. The program will be ready soon so project implementation can begin in the spring and summer of 2020. [The program is up and running].
Minnesota is replete with floral and faunal richness. We’re lucky to live and recreate in such a place. That the rusty patched bumble bee calls Minnesota its home, their decline and dual recognition as an endangered species and official state symbol is a call of concern and pride that should motivate us all to make its home (and ours) an even better place as we get out and enjoy the great outdoors.
While Lemek might feel that pride, Mark Johnson, the Republican Minnesota Senator who represents Crookston, doesn't share his vision. Nope, Senator Johnson is the chief author of SF3262.
The other three authors are Bruce Anderson, Wright County, Andrew Mathews, Milaca, and Torrey Westrom, Elbow Lake. Anderson and Westrom are the only non-first term legislators on this one.
Since only five senators may author a bill in the Senate, it's unclear whether this shifty funding is part of the Senate Majority's 2020 Vision. We don't see it.
Perhaps it's an allegiance to the agenda described last spring by MinnPost's Walker Orenstein in Why the GOP wants to cut Minnesota’s environmental spending.
So far, there's no House companion bill, but perhaps the caucus is simply having a hard time to find first term members to sign on to this pelf. Perhaps this is a job for the New Republicans.
Image: Lawns to Legumes graphic.
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