Renova Sustainable Agriculture, LLC

“Swarm the State”

Pollinator Forage Corridor Project

Campaign Name: “Swarm the State"
Full Program Goal: $146,196.

Total Sponsorship Goal: $88,196 Raised to date: $4,696 (25.8% of Phase One!) JOIN US BELOW!
Start: September 25, 2026. Deadline: December 21, 2026
Region: Northern Piedmont, Virginia
Annual Target: 2,100 acres of interconnected pollinator forage corridors
Vehicle: Hylio Pegasus NDAA-compliant agricultural drone (American-made, ~25 lb granular payload)
Organizer: Renova Sustainable Agriculture, LLC

THE PROBLEM — THE ELIMINATION OF VIRGINIA’S POLLINATOR FORAGES

The Northern Piedmont is Virginia's fastest-changing agricultural landscape.

And Virginia’s Rural Crescent is shrinking.

Urban sprawl, data center development, and utilities expansion are fragmenting farmland at an accelerating rate, and severing the ecological corridors that endangered pollinators depend upon.

Northern Virginia’s colocation data centers grew nearly five hundred percent between 2015 and 2023.

Prince William County's newly reduced Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District will still permit roughly 3,650 acres to be further consumed by data centers.

Honeybees, migratory butterflies, native bumblebees, and hummingbirds require connected habitat to survive — not isolated islands of flowers separated by miles of pavement and concrete.

Without intervention, we lose:

• Endangered pollinator species already operating at extinction thresholds

• Natural pest control and crop pollination services valued at billions nationally

• Small farm viability, as pollination-dependent orchards and vegetable operations suffer

• Migratory pathways for monarchs, metalmarks, and ruby-throated hummingbirds

While Prince William County's unanimous September 22nd vote to shrink the Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District by roughly 62% (from nearly 9,700 acres down to about 3,650 acres) marks a hard-won victory for community advocates, and the halted Prince William Digital Gateway and other mega-projects prove that organized local resistance still works, Virginia's Rural Crescent still remains under siege by smaller but cumulative threats, including but not limited to:

• 229 acres at Madera Farm in Nokesville

• 160 acres at Quantico Ridge bordering Prince William Forest Park

• 56-61 acres of developments at Quantico Creek's headwaters, one of NoVA's most pristine waterways

The pattern is clear: data centers and industrial complexes are continuing to drive more deforestation, land loss, and fragmentation than nearly any other land use in the region, and every paved-over field of native forage is a lost mile in the pollinator corridors that native bees, butterflies, and bats need to survive—and that small farms need, in order to grow the crops putting one out of every three bites of food on our tables.

That's why Renova Sustainable Agriculture is launching “Swarm the State”, a region-wide campaign to plant contiguous native pollinator forage corridors linking farms, conservation lands, and residential parcels across the Northern Piedmont of Virginia—replacing the very habitat which industrial sprawl is consuming. Join us: pledge your land as a corridor node, or donate to fund native seed and habitat restoration. Together, we can “Swarm the State” before the bulldozers do.

Here is how it works:

THE SOLUTION — INTERCONNECTED FORAGE CORRIDORS

SOWN BY DRONE

Renova Sustainable Agriculture’s "Swarm the State" initiative acquires an NDAA-Compliant Hylio Pegasus agricultural drone for Renova to commit towards mass-planting networks of Virginia-native wildflowers and cover-crop forages along field borders, utility rights-of-way, riparian buffers, and marginal acreage that tractors cannot reach. This drone will fly “pro-bono” precision missions over Donor properties to establish interconnected pollinator forage corridors — a living network of nectar that stitches together fragmented habitat across the Northern Piedmont.

2,100 acres per year establishes a measurable, scalable model for statewide replication. Each acre seeded becomes a perennial node in a resilient pollinator highway, supporting more than one hundred regional farms and farmer's markets across Renova’s range, from Alexandria to Charlottesville and beyond.

Acres Seeded Annually

2,100

Corridor Miles Connected

83 linear acre-miles

Pollinator Species Supported

Honeybees, 400+ native bee species, 170+ butterfly species, 8+ migratory hummingbird species

Small Farms Benefited

Estimated 150–200 operations across 21 counties, via improved pollination services

Farmer's Markets Impacted

30+ regional markets offering healthier, more productive crop yields

We need your help - please consider joining hands with Renova, as we rebuild Virginia’s native wildflower fields and strengthen small farms across the Piedmont region.

Every hand helps - with a pledge of support or by sharing this page across your socials, you are personally taking part in healing our state.

Read more below about how we give back to you!