Farmworkers Heal Climate-Scarred Land With Native Seeds
July 07, 2025 | Source: Civil Eats | by Caleb Hampton
As the climate crisis accelerates the need for ecological restoration, native seeds are in high demand. In 2020, for example, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a plan to conserve 30 percent of the state’s lands by 2030 to mitigate climate change and protect biodiversity by preserving nature. The plan includes land stewardship, which requires native seeds for measures such as rehabilitating wetlands to enhance wildlife habitat, and calls for accelerating restoration projects.
But only a handful of California farms—Hedgerow, its partner farm Las Flores, and a few others—grow native seed, and there isn’t enough inventory or production to support the state’s conservation goals, according to a 2023 report by the California Native Plant Society. The native seed shortage is “one of the main bottlenecks” delaying restoration work, Valliere said. “It’s a nationwide—even a global—problem,” he added.
During the past few years, catalyzed by the California Native Plant Society’s report, government agencies, land managers, and native seed producers formed working groups to improve coordination, discussing which native plant species might soon be in demand. “We’re trying to really listen and keep our finger on the pulse of where restoration is going,” said Julia Michaels, restoration ecologist and designer at Hedgerow Farms, adding that the company has scaled up its production in recent years.