“Every Seed Holds a Story”: High Mowing’s Mission for Organic Integrity

In this story, we hear from one of our investees, High Mowing Organic Seeds, and learn how they’re bringing biological, environmental, and human integrity into seed production. 

Nearly thirty years ago, a 21-year-old Tom Stearns hand-sketched his first seed catalog — 28 varieties he had grown in his backyard in Vermont. It was called The Good Seed, a humble beginning that would soon sprout into High Mowing Organic Seeds, now one of the largest solely-organic seed companies in the United States.

From those first packets, High Mowing has grown to offer more than 750 varieties of vegetables, herbs, flowers, and cover crops. Yet the heart of the company remains the same: a belief in the power of seed to transform the world.

“Seeds aren’t just products,” Andrea Tursini, High Mowing Seeds, CEO, reflects. “I like to think of seeds as tiny archives of the past — holding generations of decisions, challenges, and innovations. Every seed holds a story.”

This recognition fuels High Mowing’s social mission group, which works to honour those lineages, tell fuller stories of seed, and ensure profits are shared where appropriate. “We’re learning to tell not only the stories of the growers who raise these seeds each year, but also the deeper cultural roots they come from. It's been illuminating to see that conversation evolve for us.”

Why Organic Seed Matters

For many consumers, “organic” stops at the grocery aisle — fruit and vegetables free of synthetic pesticides. But few realise that the seed behind that produce often isn’t organic at all. Loopholes in U.S. regulation allow organic farmers to plant conventional seed if an organic version is “unavailable,” a gap that slows down the growth of organic seed markets and leaves deeper risks hidden in the soil.

Conventional seed production is typically chemical-intensive, with crops in the ground much longer than their produce counterparts. A lettuce harvested for market may be in the soil for 40 days, but a lettuce grown for seed stays in the field for months. That means more pesticide applications, looser regulations, and heavier exposures for the farmworkers who tend those fields.

“When we talk about organic versus conventional seed, I always start with the people,” Andrea says. “Organic production protects not only the soil and environment, but also the hands that grow the seed.”

Then there’s the question of farmer autonomy. Conventional seed often comes locked in legal and chemical dependencies — varieties tied to specific pesticide applications, contracts that bind growers tightly to large corporations, and intellectual property regimes that limit what farmers can do with their harvest. Organic seed, by contrast, is rooted in diversity, resilience, and systems that are less extractive by design.

Seeds as Resistance & Belonging

This difference comes alive in the stories of growers. 

Take Cheryse Kauikeolani Sana, just one of the organic growers for High Mowing Seeds, who found her way into farming through MA‘O Organic Farms in Wai‘anae, Hawaii — a community deeply shaped by both colonisation and resilience. What began as “just a way to pay for college” became a lifelong calling: seventeen years later, Cheryse still tends the land with an almost intuitive bond:

“It's the longest relationship I've ever had in my life!

I look at the mountains and the ridges, and I almost have an intuition of what’s about to happen. I can just look at a field now and say, oh, it’s missing this or something’s wrong with the water. I can go out to a field and listen to my gut. It’s really become a more spiritual relationship with the land.”

Stories like Cheryse’s remind High Mowing that seed is never just biology — it’s belonging. Each packet carries not only potential harvests but also the memory of people, places, and the living relationships that sustain us.

This is why High Mowing has committed fully to organics, even as industry consolidation looms. The global seed sector has seen wave after wave of mergers, with fewer companies controlling more of the world’s genetic diversity. For High Mowing, staying organic is both an act of integrity and resistance: a refusal to let seeds become just another commodity.

Tending Seeds, Tending Stories

And yet, there is also joy. “Everybody eats,” Andrea reminds us.

“Sharing food with people is something that draws us together. So bringing integrity — biological, environmental, human integrity — into that process is a really powerful thing. It’s what lights us up.”

Looking ahead to their 30th anniversary in 2026, High Mowing sees both challenge and opportunity. The threats of consolidation and political hostility remain, but so does the promise of storytelling. The stories that are attached to these seeds are relevant to everybody — no matter where you come from, where you live, what your ancestry is. “Telling those stories is something we find really powerful.”

Seeds are not just inputs to a system — they are carriers of memory, culture, resilience, and imagination. For High Mowing, the mission is clear: tend the seeds, tend the stories, and keep planting futures worth inheriting.