Building a thriving native plant value chain is essential for biodiversity restoration – this market sector supplies trees, shrubs, perennials (forbs and grasses), and seeds of sufficient quality and known origin. Whether urban dwellers are rewilding their backyard, or conservation groups restore critical habitat in a national park – access to quality native plants is essential. Yet the industry remains trapped in a “chicken-egg conundrum”—low demand limits supply growth, while limited supply hinders the scaling of demand. Larger restoration projects often have to orchestrate the growing of plants over several years -which clears the market supply and competes with other projects that cannot happen.
To unlock the full potential of native plants in our ecosystems, we must design a system where both demand and supply of native plants grow in tandem. However, the challenges facing small nurseries, nonprofits, and the larger market structure highlight the need for innovative strategies that prioritize decentralization and collaboration over monopolization and specialization.
Small Nurseries: Struggling with Marketing and Profitability
For many small native plant nurseries, profitability remains elusive. A key challenge is the high cost of marketing, especially in a context where demand is relatively low. These nurseries must spend significant resources on reaching customers—often selling small volumes of plants at higher prices to make up for low overall demand.
This focus on selling smaller quantities of plants, while necessary for their business’ survival, creates a bottleneck. Small nurseries are forced to prioritize short-term revenue from niche markets, rather than investing in more efficient production methods that could drive down costs and increase volumes. Without simpler access to larger, stable markets, such as public sector projects or large institutional buyers, nurseries cannot achieve the scale necessary to reduce per-unit costs. This, in turn, perpetuates the cycle of limited supply and high prices, deterring broader consumer interest in native plants.
Growing the Pie vs. Competing for a bigger piece of a tiny pie
The current market dynamic and the tight profit margins in the sector can also lead to unhealthy competition between sector organizations – whether nonprofits or for-profit. Once a project type or plant promises a decent financial return, organizations default into known strategies to benefit from these economic opportunities: they specialize in this type of project or service and try to obtain a central market position, even a monopoly. Such specialization results in the entity securing a larger slice of the same small pie, rather than collaborating to grow the entire sector. A nonprofit may focus on education, a for-profit may specialize in larger-scale restoration projects or on standardizing the fashionable community project of the day. By falling into the adversarial narrative of competition rather than on strategic co-operation, this approach does not expand the market beyond a niche.
Experience from the local food sector exemplify how actors “default” to the capitalistic strategy of specialization around high-return value chain services. During the rapid growth of local food during the late 2010s, tech companies formed around online distribution. With the decline of local food demand, the investors behind several tech companies learned that the profit potential in local food is minimal. As investors withdrew, and distribution companies had to close. The production sector is now struggling not only with decreasing demand, but also with a total erosion of tech infrastructure. At a systemic level, specialization has hindered collaboration and stunted sector-wide growth. If, instead, these entities worked together to create a larger, more diverse market for local, ecologically grown food —combining educational outreach, community engagement, and larger-scale restoration projects—both sectors could benefit.
I am convinced that these lessons transfer to the native plant sector. Strategic collaboration would allow both nonprofits and for-profits to thrive while driving production and demand for native plants, at scale.
The Case for Decentralization in Seed Security and Biodiversity
Another key element to consider is the importance of decentralization in seed security and biodiversity. Centralized supply chains and monopolization would fail to meet the need for true biodiversity restoration. Native plants, by their very nature, require diverse genetics (and epi-genetics) that are adapted to localized growing conditions, making them poorly suited for large-scale, centralized production models.
Decentralized seed networks are essential for maintaining genetic diversity and ensuring that native plants are grown in alignment with the ecological conditions of specific regions. By building localized seed collection, cleaning, and storage systems, these networks foster resilience, allowing local growers to meet demand while protecting the biodiversity of plant species.
A decentralized system also provides more equitable opportunities for small growers to participate in the native plant economy, which is crucial for maintaining the biodiversity of both plant species and the agricultural economy.
The Role of Public Sector Demand in Driving Supply Growth
One strategy that has the potential to break the supply-demand deadlock is strategic public sector investment in native plant projects. Public institutions—municipalities, schools, hospitals—represent an untapped opportunity for driving consistent demand, which can provide the stability that small nurseries need to plan for larger production volumes.
However, it is essential that these policies are designed to support localized and decentralized supply chains, rather than fostering the emergence of a few very large market actors. Centralized suppliers may drive down prices faster initially, at several risks. The first is how centralization will create standardized growing conditions that undermine genetic diversity that native plant projects aim to recuperate. Knowledge will also remain centralized, in the hand of a few well-known experts that may excel at what they are doing, but ultimately fail to create a decentralized movement with skilled advocates everywhere. A localized approach, where small and mid-sized nurseries are encouraged to supply public sector projects, and a myriad of educators and advocates are generated, would create a more resilient movement, larger market supply that does not depend on individual actors, and an adaptable value chain. It would also maintain the genetic integrity of native plant species.
Tiny Forests as a Model for Decentralized Value Chains
One particularly promising model for public sector engagement is the Tiny Forest or Miyawaki Forest concept. These small, dense, native plant forests are increasingly popular worldwide as educational and conservation projects. Public investment in Tiny Forests not only provides immediate benefits in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem restoration, and important locations of learning and care, but also creates clear, replicable projects that can drive demand for native plants.
By integrating Tiny Forests into public spaces—schools, parks, municipal buildings—governments can create a consistent stream of demand for native plants, while also engaging local communities in the process of restoration. This type of investment can be paired with decentralized value chains, where local growers provide the plants needed for these projects. Over time, as more Tiny Forests are planted, this could help drive up both demand and supply in a way that is sustainable, scalable, and beneficial for biodiversity.
Conclusion: Designing for Simultaneous Growth of Demand and Supply
To break the chicken-egg conundrum in the native plant value chain, we must embrace strategies that allow demand and supply to grow simultaneously. By reducing the marketing burdens on small nurseries, encouraging collaboration between nonprofits and for-profits, decentralizing seed and plant production, and leveraging public sector investment in projects like Tiny Forests, we can create a thriving market for native plants. This approach not only benefits growers but also fosters a more biodiverse and resilient ecosystem—ensuring that native plants play a central role in the future of landscape restoration.
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