Australia’s seed industry is in dire straits and in desperate need of funding to scale up if it is expected to live up to government and industry expectations of widescale ecosystem restoration driven by carbon and biodiversity markets, industry experts say.

The Labor government’s policy efforts, such as the reformed Safeguard Mechanism and its proposed nature repair market (NRM), are shaped so the land sector will have to do much of the heavy lifting in achieving its climate and environmental goals.

The Safeguard Mechanism will allow companies to purchase Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) to offset emissions that fall above a covered facility’s declining baseline.

The NRM, meanwhile, aims to channel voluntary funding into nature protection and restoration on private land at scale by corporates and philanthropists purchasing biodiversity certificates.

It is part of the government’s Nature Positive Plan, which includes efforts to ensure no new extinctions beyond 2030 and meet international commitments to protect 30% of Australia’s land and sea by the same date.

NOT ON THE RADAR

While ACCUs come from a variety of sources and the government is still in the process of developing methodologies for the NRM, experts say that Australian native seed supply is a vital piece of the puzzle that is currently missing.

“Delivering biodiverse carbon projects requires a range of specific technical knowledge,” Samantha Craigie, seed operations manager at Greening Australia, told Carbon Pulse.

“There is a lack of visibility on the native seed supply chain in Australia, a problem that is exacerbated by low levels of native seed literacy among those outside the seed sector.”

Martin Driver from the Australian Network for Plant Conservation (ANPC) told Carbon Pulse there was a presumption by policymakers and project proponents that seed supply was freely available.

“They haven’t even thought about it until they approach seed merchants or seed collectors, it’s not even on their radar because they believe that the seed is out there somewhere.”

He said there was currently about a 130,000-hectare demand for seeds in New South Wales alone for offsets and rehabilitation work in the mining industry that cannot currently be met.

“Most of the companies are only just coming to the realisation now because government is starting to force their hands in meeting [environmental] obligations,” he said.

Stephen Field, CEO of native seed bank Biobank Seed, told Carbon Pulse he has been approached by project proponents looking for him to supply tens of thousands of trees and hundreds of kilograms of seeds, expecting to be able to “pick them up off the shelf”.

“I tell them ‘I can’t help you, the timing is just 100% wrong’, and then in three or four months later they ring me back and say ‘we can’t find anybody else’,” he said.

He said Australia was “not even close” to having the supply and expertise needed to meet the expected demand from carbon and biodiversity markets.

A GROWING PROBLEM

Greening Australia’s Craigie pointed to multiple reports, going back as far as 2000, identifying seed supply issues, but said there was no national quantitative data available on annual native seed supply and demand for restoration.

“Supply is constrained by several factors including, but not limited to, the amount of healthy native vegetation in a region. Where these intercept with high demand for restoration, insufficient supply can result,” she said.

Driver of ANPC also highlighted environmental factors that would limit the ability of some seeds from being collected.

“Many of the species, particularly in the drier areas, are not set in seed every year, some of them are decades between major seed sets, and there are no systems really to plan and capture that unless there is some sort of forward planning and coordination,” he said.

Craigie said sector supply is limited by access to seed and land, as well as variability due to seasonal condition, incomplete information on demand, and poor coordination and resourcing.

“This is limited by climate change and deterioration of native vegetation,” she said.

AD HOC

There is significant knowledge and expertise within the native seed sector in Australia, but the industry would struggle to sustainably meet the expected increased demand from carbon and biodiversity markets without additional funding in infrastructure, capacity, and research, according to Craigie.

“Australia has the knowledge and expertise, but translating that into on-ground outcomes nationally will be very difficult. A key challenge is quantifying achievements and improving our capacity to implement cost-effective restoration,” she said.

“Anecdotally, it is fair to say that seed collectors have left the industry over the years due to an inability to maintain sustainable businesses.”

She said she had noticed a change in the nursery industry, with some smaller players closing down, creating pressure on those remaining to meet the demand for seedlings, however she said there are a number of key players who have noticed the opportunity, and are scaling up.

Driver, however, was more pessimistic in his assessment of the industry.

“The seed industry is not an industry yet, it’s just a fragmented and uncoordinated sector of usually small business and opportunistic collectors, and is based on ad hoc collection on demand,” he said.

According to a 2021 report by the NSW Healthy Seeds Project, around 90,000 kg of native seeds was collected in 2019, with most being un-licenced and collected from the wild, on public land, and roadsides.

The report said collectors’ record keeping systems varied, with less than a third using databases, while the remainder either used spreadsheets, paper records, or kept no records at all.

It said seed storage capacity was also limited and that storage conditions varied across the sector.

Craigie said input from government was required to scale-up the industry’s efforts to implement cost-effective restoration work.

BioBank Seed’s Field, however, said what little funding the government provided to the industry was usually taken by larger organisations, such as the Royal Botanical Gardens, despite it focussing on seed species protection rather than supply for large-scale restoration.

“The Botanical Gardens sucks the life out of this industry … I don’t know anyone in the restoration game who has ever been in contact with them, but as soon as there’s money there to get off the government, they go behind closed doors and the rest of us get locked out.”

Carbon Pulse approached the Royal Botanic Gardens for comment, but they referred questions to the Australian Seed Bank Partnership.

The Australian Seed Bank Partnership did not respond by time of publication.

Craigie said industry and the government needed to find smarter ways to work together.

“There needs to be an industry body that can represent the sector and the experiences of practitioners to government, and problem solve with policy makers to find smarter, fit-for-purpose ways to maintain a sustainable seed supply… and ultimately fulfil our global responsibilities in tackling climate change and biodiversity loss,” she said.

VITAL COMPONENT

Industry body the Carbon Market Institute has urged the federal government to develop a national carbon market strategy to help guide policy development for the carbon industry.

However, when asked by Carbon Pulse how seed supply could potentially factor into this strategy, its response was limited.

“In addition to protecting and regrowing existing vegetation, carbon projects play an important role in growing new vegetation. Each of these elements present their own unique supply chain and timeline challenges, which will in turn affect ACCU supply levels,” CMI CEO John Connor said.

“For environmental planting projects, access to native seed stock is a vital component in shoring up future supply levels.”

Carbon project developer Climate Friendly, meanwhile, stressed the importance of working with local suppliers.

“Climate Friendly understands that seed supply is variable for each region, and that it’s important to work with communities and local service providers, to ensure the required seed is available,” Jessie Laing, head of productive agriculture at Climate Friendly, said.

“Climate Friendly focuses on local and regional seed providers and engages with Indigenous partners for seed sourcing whenever possible.”

Developer GreenCollar Group told Carbon Pulse that its projects focussed on regenerating vegetation in situ, and as a result did not rely on native seeds.

Earlier this month, ACCUs sourced from environmental plantings projects fetched a 60% price premium above generic units, highlighting the demand for the project type.

The Australian government previously told Carbon Pulse that the government was supporting activities to address seed availability, and undertaking pilots that would help inform activities under the NRM.

Greening Australia’s Craigie said there needed to be an assessment of current native seed infrastructure capacity, including where it is, and what additional resources are needed where.

“Many reports have identified that demand won’t be able to be sustainably met with wild harvest alone – as such, there’s an urgent need for the development and investment in strategically placed large-scale native Seed Production Areas,” she said.

“Education and training resources are also required in addition to funding for an industry body to represent all stakeholders, freely share information and knowledge and to specifically fund capacity building to support leadership from Traditional Owner groups.”

By Mark Tilly – mark@carbon-pulse.com