Our Work · Seeds
Wild seed collection, native plant nurseries, and the genetically appropriate seed supply that landscape-scale restoration depends on.
Why Seeds Matter
A major bottleneck for dryland and grassland restoration across the U.S. Southwest and Mexico is the lack of locally-adapted native seed. Wild seed must be collected carefully and by hand, and is extraordinarily precious and scarce. When land managers cannot access or afford local seed, they often rely on distant, unknown, or non-native sources — reducing restoration success and long-term resilience. Agave Nation is helping to build the infrastructure to change that: preserving genetic diversity in both cultivation and restoration, and producing a cheap, accessible native seed supply at the scale this landscape requires.
Project 2 · Critical Infrastructure
This project combines expansion of targeted wild seed collection with at-scale, farm-based cultivation of genetically diverse, locally-adapted agave seed — increasing seed production by multiple orders of magnitude and creating the restoration infrastructure to respond to fire, flood, drought, erosion, and habitat degradation at scale across the Southwest.
Location & Participants: Led by the Borderlands Restoration Network, expanding the existing Borderlands Nursery & Seed enterprise in Patagonia, Arizona, alongside wild seed collection essential to preserving native plant genetics. The expanded farm will supply seed through the cooperative for regenerative ranching, grassland, and dryland restoration across the Arizona and New Mexico agave corridor.
$25K
Essential wild seed collection & processing.
$100K
Expanded seed farm production capacity.
$250K+
Full project funding for seed infrastructure & restoration pipelines.
Project 3 · Critical Infrastructure
Nectar-feeding bats follow corridors of blooming agaves north and south through Mexico, but in many landscapes that corridor has been broken, with only scattered populations of agave and fewer native species. Because transporting seed across the U.S.-Mexico border is logistically difficult and expensive, the Borderlands Restoration Network is developing sister seed farms and nurseries in the heart of Mexico’s agave corridor to produce critically-needed seed and plants at scale.
Location & Participants: Centered in key agave-producing states – Puebla, Oaxaca, Jalisco, and Sonora – this project works through regional seed collection and nursery partners to build community-based seed enterprises and regional seed banks. Bat Conservation International and local restoration partners anchor the work, with Agave Nation coordinating provenance standards across the corridor.
$25K
Seed-system planning & partner coordination.
$50K
Pilot regional seed collection, banking & propagation protocols.
$100K+
Full project budget, establishing multi-site, bi-national seed infrastructure.
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