Increasing Wildlife Compatibility of Farmland; Habitat Corridors

One promising practice for enhancing wildlife habitat while minimizing impacts to farmland production is to establish "habitat corridor systems" in which "corridors" of habitat (e.g., native grasses, hedgerows, or riparian strips) are enhanced or established along field edges, property edges, and the like. Yolo County's Hedgerow Farms provides a local example of the planting of a corridor of mixed native perennial grasses along roadsides, berms, sloughs, canal banks, and field borders, which provide yearround habitat for wildlife without having a negative impact on farming practices. Habitat corridor systems can also be used along the edges of tail water ponds, which are found throughout Yolo County. Instead of spraying to keep the area around these ponds clear of weeds, perennial grasses and shrubs can be planted to provide habitat cover, thereby increasing habitat value without removing land from agricultural production. The same is true for roadside corridors, which can utilize land devoted to road easements to maintain a vegetated area of native grasses and shrubs.

The goal of this program is to provide greater wildlife habitat value on agricultural lands without significantly affecting crop production.

Little, if any, cropland has to be removed from production under this technique, and the practice can even provide weed and erosion control on the edges of agricultural fields (American Farmland Trust, 1994). The habitat corridor systems on Hedgerow Farms have also dramatically increased the number of bird species using the farm throughout the year, and have resulted in a documented increase in the number of beneficial
insects present.