Cover and Forage
Crop Seed

Grown by
Southwest Farmers
for Southwest Farmers

Given the Southwest Grain Collaborative’s experience sourcing high-priced cover and forage crop seed to help establish robust regenerative organic practices—and then paying even more to have this seed delivered here from great distances—it dawned on us that perhaps we ought to try developing a local seed supply of our own: cover and forage crop seed grown by Southwest farmers for Southwest farmers! It seemed like a natural extension of our ongoing work. The Organic Seed Alliance’s State of Organic Seed, 2022 confirmed our hunch: there is an increasing demand but insufficient supply of certified organic cover crop seed in the US. This is especially true in the Southwest.

Using a participatory seed-breeding approach, Southwest Grain Collaborative is now doing new research to develop varieties of regionally adapted, certified organic cover and forage crops that will be able to thrive with less water. Our goal is to produce high-quality cover and forage crop seed at scale, to be commercially distributed and widely adopted as an integral aspect of regional cropping and livestock production systems, building soil health and climate resilience. The facts of climate change and megadrought in the Southwest make work on nonthirsty cover and forage crops extremely relevant.

As a seedsman friend from Southern Colorado put it, “I can confirm that there is a significant economic opportunity for growers in the Southwest to produce high-quality certified organic cover/forage crop seed. … Not only could cover/forage crop seed production be great for diversifying and creating more balanced farm and ranch operations, but it would also be a huge service to the organic community across the United States.”