Part of an Effort to Educate the Community on the Importance of Pollinators while Protecting Pollinators and their Habitats
Dakota Rural Action (DRA) has been awarded a $15,000 grant from Ceres Trust, a non-profit supporting local movements in preservation, restoration, and education.
Dakota Rural Action members have been building their campaign strategy to help increase awareness of the importance of pollinators and their role in agriculture. In order to grow healthy crops, gardens, and plants, pollinators are key in keeping locally grown foods thriving in this community. Dakota Rural Action plans to move forward in the Pollinator Campaign by providing important information about pollinators to the community, working to preserve pollinators habitats, utilizing fertilizers that do not contain pollinator harming chemicals, and to grow plants in the community that are pollinator friendly.
Dakota Rural Action is a grassroots family agriculture and conservation group that organizes South Dakotans to protect family farmers and ranchers, natural resources, and South Dakota’s unique way of life. DRA is dedicated to building leadership through community organizing by giving people a strong voice in decisions affecting their life.
“According to biologists, we now sit precariously on the edge of mass species extinction, losing the plants and animals that are key to all of our survival. Amphibians, grassland birds, as well as honey bees and other pollinators such as monarch butterflies, are some of the species most obviously under threat. Of the 100 crops needed to feed 90% of the world, over 70 of these crops are pollinated by bees,” from Ceres Trust website in the section discussing Pollinator Protection and Proliferation. For more information visit, http://cerestrust.org/pollinator-protection-and-proliferation/.
Ceres Trust supports movement-oriented organizations; independent scientists; and the preservation and restoration of ecological, Indigenous and farmer knowledge. Ceres Trust invests in the organizing, strategy development and resiliency required to spark systemic, equitable and transformative change. Ceres Trust emphasizes long-term relationships with grantees. Grant making is focused in Hawai’i, the upper Midwest, and the San Joaquin Valley of California.