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Global Seed Vault

Gradient Ocean

Cindy Walbridge

Jan 18, 2022

Norway

Categories:

Food, Agriculture, Sustainability, Diversity, Climate Change

Svalbard. Ever heard of it? How fascinating to find a group of islands so far north it almost reaches the latitude of the northernmost point of Greenland. It is tucked away between Greenland and Norway and is part of the Kingdom of Norway. For as far north as it is, the mean average temperature in January is relatively warm, 16 degrees Fahrenheit/-9 degrees Celsius. Most of us probably never heard of Svalbard before.


Svalbard is home to the Global Seed Vault (croptrust.org), an international project funded, in part, by 28 countries. What is the Global Seed Vault? It is a vault to store all the world's natural (no genetically modified) seeds. It is located in the Svalbard archipelago because they could find a permanently frozen and safe location for the seed storage facility. The engineers built the facility into a mountainside, buried in an old coal mine 393.7 feet into the rock! This Global Seed Vault houses the world's most extensive collection of seeds representing the greatest crop diversity in the world. To date, there are 1.081 billion seed samples in the vault.


Crop diversity is essential for life on Earth. It underpins nearly everything we eat and drink. But it's rapidly disappearing.
-Croptrust.org


Why should we be interested in this? Preserving every seed in the world is the mission, and no one knows how many plants went extinct before the seed vault. There are many risks to healthy plant diversity globally. The less diversity, the greater is our chance of catastrophic food failure. Some of those risks include: climate change, rapid deforestation worldwide, mono-culture farming, disease, and the increasing reliance on fewer plant varieties to feed more people with industrial agriculture pose a risk to plant diversity and increase the risk of catastrophic food failure in the future. Crop diversity is key to being adaptable and resilient to changing conditions globally. Storing representative seed samples from all living plants will help maintain crop diversity worldwide. Yet, as the Arctic warms, there is no guarantee that the vault, over an unknown period, can keep the seeds cold enough, long enough.


Threats to agricultural crops are real. For example, citrus greening is one of the most severe diseases for citrus crops. There is no cure for it, and it can destroy a citrus grove quickly. It was first reported in China in 1919 and spread through many countries arriving in the United States in 2005. One theory suggests citrus greening came across the Atlantic Ocean by hurricane. What would happen if citrus plants went extinct?


In 1923, most bananas in the world were one type, Gros Michel or Big Mike. This single species agriculture is known as mono-culture. A strain of fungus called fusarium destroyed banana plantations worldwide, and there were widespread shortages. A new cultivar, the Cavendish, became the dominant banana. A new strain of the fusarium fungus has since arisen (Tropical Race 4) and threatens the world's banana plantations again. What would the world be like if there were no more bananas?


What can we do locally to help?
1) Educate yourself and take action to reduce your carbon footprint.
2) Encourage local agriculture groups, such as 4-H clubs and grocery stores, to use more heritage plant species and promote their awareness. You are supporting crop diversity.
3) Shy away from food products made from ingredients that have been genetically modified (GMO). GMO seed stock is often proprietary to a company and only available from that company.
4) Grow heritage types of food plants at home, for example, tomatoes and apples.
5) Support local seed exchanges or create one for your community. Partner with your local gardening groups and plant nurseries.
5) Learn more about Crop Trust and the Global Seed Vault at croptrust.org. Find out if your country participates, and if now, lobby your government officials to join.

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Catalog #:

0821.107.01.011722

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