The Cost of Access: Navigating Tariffs in the Organic Seed Market

High Mowing Organic Seeds, a leading supplier of organic seed varieties in North America, has built a reputation for transparency and technical insight in the industry. The company’s recent Tariffs & Pricing blog post, which detailed the practical effects of tariffs on seed costs and sourcing decisions, prompted a closer look at how trade policy is reshaping the U.S. organic seed market. Andrea Tursini, CEO, provided a detailed perspective on the challenges faced by growers and seed suppliers alike.

While Tursini noted that the company has not experienced significant shortages in organic seed varieties, she emphasized that tariffs have introduced new complexity to pricing. “We had a few surprises with things that we were expecting to have a 15% tariff rate show up with a 25% tariff rate,” she said, highlighting the difficulty of anticipating costs when the country of origin affects the tariff applied. “It has made it really difficult to navigate pricing and margins and figure out how to weather some of those costs,” Tursini explained.