The Pollinator Partnership has launched the Midwest Farm Conservation Survey to find out what motivates Midwestern farmers to adopt conservation practices and how USDA programs could serve them better.

Vicki Wojcik, the organization's Director of Science and Research, outlined the survey's aims in an interview with Brownfield. "We want to know what they're doing, what the driving factor is, and then when they're seeking that technical side of how to do it," she said.

The survey asks growers not only which practices they have already put in place, but why they chose them — whether the motivation stems from agronomic outcomes, program incentives, cost considerations, or access to technical assistance. A second focus is the support channel itself: when farmers decide to act, the Pollinator Partnership wants to understand how they reach for technical guidance on implementation, and where USDA programming fits into that decision.

Organizers frame the effort as a way to carry structured, ground-level feedback from Midwestern operations directly to USDA. The results are intended to inform how the department's conservation programs could work better for the farmers who use them, rather than reflecting top-down program design alone.

For Midwest growers, the practical stakes are straightforward. Conservation practice adoption — cover crops, pollinator habitat, and related measures — carries input costs and management trade-offs that depend heavily on program structure, technical support, and cost-share availability. Survey findings that identify where USDA assistance falls short could shape future adjustments in how those programs reach farms and deliver support.

The Pollinator Partnership has not yet detailed its reporting timeline or methodology for the survey results; the scope so far covers motivation, current practice adoption, and the technical-assistance pathways farmers use when they act.

Wojcik's comments indicate the organization plans to compile the responses and pass that feedback to USDA as a summary of what Midwestern farmers are actually doing on the ground and what drives those decisions — a data point the department will be able to weigh as it considers how its conservation programs perform for the growers they are designed to serve.