There are plenty of simple ways to help pollinators on your farm. The guideline ‘Farmland: actions to help pollinators’ gives 5 main actions.

Farmland: actions to help pollinators

The guide includes five main actions for pollinator-friendly farming:

1. Maintain native flowering hedgerows 

Hedgerows are vital to the survival of pollinators, providing food, shelter and transport corridors.

2. Allow wildflowers to grow around the farm

By avoiding over-management of non-productive areas, you can increase native wildflowers in non-farmed areas (farmyards, laneways, field margins, arable margins, watercourse margins and field corners) and ensure that you have food sources for pollinators through the year.

3. Provide nesting places for wild bees

Maintain or create some nesting habitat for bumblebees, mining solitary bees and cavity-nesting solitary bees.  

4. Minimise artificial fertiliser use

Pastures that include clover and other legumes were more common before the arrival of chemical fertilisers and have become more relevant again as a way of reducing costs.

5. Reduce pesticide inputs

There may be small actions that farmers can take to reduce their use of pesticides and help pollinators.

 

Maintaining Healthy Hedgerows

Tipperary Dairy Farmer John Fogarty explains how he approaches hedgerow management.

Hedgerows: Lifelines on Farmland 

Tipperary Farmer Sean O’Farrell discusses the mutual benefits of allowing his hedgerows to flower on his farm.

 

How-to-guide: Hedgerows for Pollinators