Sam Earnshaw inspects an alder tree near the Redman house Wednesday. He recently received the pollinator advocate award for his work in creating habitats for native bees. ... photo by Tarmo Hannula

Sam Earnshaw, the Central Coast program coordinator for Community Alliance with Family Farmers, has been awarded the Pollinator Advocate Award, sponsored by the trinational North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, which consists of 120-plus organizations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The award is given as part of an international effort to promote public awareness about pollinators – birds, bees, bats, butterflies, beetles and other animals that enable the reproduction of flowering plants, accounting for as much as one-third of the nation’s food supply.

Earnshaw, an avid promoter of organic and sustainable farming practices, has planted more than 100 miles of ecological projects on 70 farms on the Central Coast. He designs and installs hedgerows, grassed waterways, filter strips and restores riparian habitat. The projects promote water conservation and bring beneficial insects to the farm. Among those insects are native bees.

“The plants we plant namely attract the native bees,” Earnshaw said. “There are 4,000 species of native bees in the United States. Native bees are very effective when natural habitat is available. They use the plants for nectar and pollen, and they, in turn, have energy to pollinate the crops.”

Initiated in 2005, this year’s Pollinator Advocate Award recipients include Juan Francisco Ornelas, Ph.D., from Mexico, Homer Woodward from Canada, and Earl Blumenaur of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Earnshaw said native bees are especially important right now because honey bees are in short supply. The reason, Colony Collapse Disorder, is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a colony abruptly disappear. The cause for this is unknown, though some scientists have attributed it to disease or pesticides.

Native bees pollinate blueberries, strawberries, apples, pears, raspberries, blackberries, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, peaches, plums and many other crops. Earnshaw said native bees make any honeybees on the farm work harder, as they seem to compete with the native bees. Native bees also work in the rain and are more active in cold weather. And best of all, Earnshaw said, native bees are free. Plants that attract native bees include California lilac, toyon, coyote brush and plants in the rose family.

Earnshaw studied forestry at U.C. Berkeley, graduating in 1974. He started working in conventional farming early in his career, but didn’t like all the pesticides he saw and turned to organic farming, an industry in its infancy at the time. In the mid-1980s, Earnshaw and his wife, Jo Ann Baumgartner, started their own farm, Neptune Farms, and marketed organic vegetables and cut flowers to retail stores, farmers markets and wholesalers in the Monterey Bay area.

“My wife and I attended the Eco-Farm Conference in 1983 and we then just started our own farm,” he said. “And for the next 10 or 15 years we ran our farm organically.”

In 1992, Earnshaw began working as Lighthouse Farm coordinator for CAFF, sponsoring monthly meetings and field tours for farmers and sharing techniques in biologically-based farming techniques. Earnshaw’s work with local growers in Watsonville, Santa Cruz, Salinas and Hollister, through this program, has led to CAFF’s involvement in land use and water issues on the Central Coast.

Earnshaw no longer farms commercially, but works full time on his educational ventures. He is also the author of “Hedgerows for California Agriculture: A Resource Guide,” published by CAFF, which has a plant list that identifies species that attract native bees.

Earnshaw also collaborates on several projects with the Wild Farm Alliance, which has published a briefing paper titled “Wild Pollinators: Agriculture’s Forgotten Partners,” available on the WFA Web site www.wildfarmalliance.org. A guide to creating hedgerows is online at www.caff.org.



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