While watching the world’s issues, some are planning for humanity’s long-term future. Crops are central to society, and seed vaults around the world ensure the survival of crop diversity.
At the end of February, the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard took in its millionth crop as 70,000 were added to the world’s arctic storage cube. Monday, Feb. 26 also marked the vault’s tenth anniversary.
“Hitting the millionth mark is really significant,” Hannes Dempewolf, senior scientist of the Crop Trust, said. “Only a few years back I don’t think we would have thought that we would get there.”
The Crop Trust is an international organization dedicated to the conservation of the diversity of crops we depend on for food.
Among the additions were “cereal staples, unusual crops like the Estonian onion potato, and barley used to brew Irish beer,” BBC reported. Also, “Bambara groundnut, which is being developed as a drought-tolerant crop in Africa.”
What is the seed vault? It’s the best place to keep seeds safe for a very long time. Isolated under a mountain in the Arctic Circle, the vault only opens twice a year for deposits. It’s an ah-maize-ing concept.
Crop Diversity
As far as balance goes, diversity in all aspects of life has value. Maintaining crop diversity is the basis for the survival of the world’s food supply. Threats such as drought and climate change have the potential to wipe out crops we depend on.
The seed vault is well fortified and is essentially an external hard drive that stores a backup. From here, crops can be restored, or new crops can be introduced, should disaster strike.
The Global Seed Vault was “designed to hold back-ups of samples stored elsewhere in seed banks around the world,” according to BBC.
It’s enormous, but it won’t run out of room any time soon. Only one of its three chambers is almost full of seed packets constituting a variety of important food crops.
More than 73 institutions have deposited crops since February 2008, BBC reported.
The Global Seed Vault has been labeled a Doomsday Seed Vault, perhaps aptly named because of its purpose. In the past it has restored the crops of war-torn countries.
Marie Haga, executive director of the Crop Trust, spoke to its importance:
“The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is an iconic reminder of the remarkable conservation effort that is taking place every day, around the world and around the clock – an effort to conserve the seeds of our food crops. Safeguarding such a huge range of seeds means scientists will have the best chance of developing nutritious and climate-resilient crops that can ensure future generations don’t just survive, but thrive.”
The seed vault is the product of globally-minded preppers. It has proven valuable in the past and will prove immeasurably valuable in the future.
Lettuce Reflect
In 2015 and 2017, wheat, lentil and chickpea among other crops were withdrawn from the Svalbard vault “to make up for precious samples stranded in Syria due to the conflict there,” BBC reported.
The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas withdrew around 90,000 seeds– wheat, lentil and chickpea among other crops– to make up for lost samples after a seed bank in Syria was left stranded due to civil conflict in 2015 and 2017.
In 2017, the Svalbard vault’s entrance was flooded after extreme weather, but the water never reached the frozen seed chambers. Since that incident, the vault has been fortified with waterproof walls and other reinforcements against a warming climate.
Crop Trust details on their website that the Svalbard vault is well above sea level “according to worst case scenario sea level rises.”
It only makes sense that a vault created to protect crop diversity from warming temperatures be built to function in predicted warmer weather.
