1/21/2024 0 Comments North pole seed vault![]() Some crops can't be conserved that way, and there are other means for doing that. And typically, over the years, most of that conservation of crop diversity has been done by conserving seeds. We want to save all the traits that plant diversity has. We don't want to eliminate or reduce those colors. And those are the options that we have for the future, just like an artist would have a lot of different colors on his or her palette. So if we want our crops to be productive in the future, if we want them adapted to new climates or to whatever pest or disease is out there, then we need to conserve that diversity because the diversity is really a diversity of traits. But it's the biological foundation of agriculture, and it's the raw material for plant evolution, for plant breeding for the future. ![]() And most people don't really stop to think of why crop diversity is important enough to be conserving. So tell us what the point of the seed vault is.ĬARY FOWLER: The point is to conserve crop diversity. He's also the author of a book about the Global Seed Vault called, "Seeds On Ice".Ĭary Fowler, welcome to FRESH AIR. In the '90s, he led the team that conducted the U.N.'s first global assessment of the state of the world's crop diversity. Part of what makes the vault safe is its location, just 700 miles from the North Pole.įowler conceptualized the vault, headed the committee that developed the plan for the facility and is the founding chair of the international council that has overseen the vault since its inception. It stores and protects nearly a million samples of crop varieties from about 5,000 different species with the mission of safeguarding the diversity of our agricultural crops in perpetuity, in spite of war, pestilence and climate change. He prefers the official name, the Global Seed Vault. My guest Cary Fowler is the creator of the vault, but he doesn't much like the doomsday title. It's been called the doomsday vault, the vault that will preserve the seeds of life after a catastrophic event. With Tuesday's deposit, it contains one million different seeds, from almost all nations.TERRY GROSS: This is is FRESH AIR. One in nine people go to bed hungry globally, according to the United Nations' World Food Programme, and scientists have predicted that erratic weather patterns could reduce both the quality and quantity of food available. We need to preserve this biodiversity, this crop diversity, to provide healthy diets and nutritious foods, and for providing farmers, especially smallholders, with sustainable livelihoods so that they can adapt to new conditions. The seed vault is the backup in the global system of conservation to secure food security on Earth, Stefan Schmitz, executive director of the Crop Trust, the Bonn-based organization that manages the vault said. The world used to cultivate around 7,000 different plants but experts say we now get about 60% of our calories from three main crops - maize, wheat and rice - making food supplies vulnerable if climate change causes harvests to fail. ![]() The vault also serves as a backup for plant breeders to develop new varieties of crops. The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in Britain banked seeds harvested from the meadows of Prince Charles' private residence, Highgrove. On Tuesday, 30 gene banks deposited seeds, also including offerings from India, Mali and Peru. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built on a mountainside in 2008, was designed as a storage facility to protect vital crop seeds against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease and safeguard global food supplies.ĭubbed the doomsday vault, the facility lies on the island of Spitsbergen in the archipelago of Svalbard, halfway between Norway and the North Pole, and is only opened a few times a year in order to preserve the seeds inside. The sealed vault in the Arctic built to preserve seeds for rice, wheat and other food staples contains one million varieties with the addition on Tuesday of specimens grown by Cherokee Indians and the estate of Britain's Prince Charles. Dubbed the doomsday vault, the facility lies on the island of Spitsbergen in the archipelago of Svalbard, halfway between Norway and the North Pole ![]()
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