Turning Iowa farmland into butterfly, bee habitat

Over the past four years, Iowa farmers have enrolled 127,005 acres in a federal conservation reserve program designed to sustain butterflies, bees, wasps, birds and bats — with all but 15,000 acres being added in the past year, according to the Iowa Farm Service Agency.  In fact, Iowa has about 40 percent of the nation's total acres of pollinator habitat, the agency said. The federal contracts require the land to be set aside for habitat for 10 or 15 years, with penalties for ending them sooner.  Part of Iowa's adoption comes from a big state and national habitat push.