Launched with support from the the Apis Fund, a Gund Institute of Environment biannual competition supporting bees and other pollinators, the Vermont Pollinator Working Group works with researchers, conservationists, farmers, and beekeepers to tackle urgent threats to bees and other pollinators.

Too much phosphorus can contribute to toxic algae blooms and other environmental damage. Vermont farmers work to keep phosphorus from flowing off their fields and downstream. The Gund Institute is evaluating Vermont's Pay-For-Performance program, which allows farmers to choose what methods they use.

As climate change upends formal seed system crops, Gund Fellow Yolanda Chen is exploring how smallholder farmers create diverse, locally adapted crop varieties and the evosystem services, benefits we gain from biodiversity, developed through developed through evolutionary processes, they provide.