Saving Seeds: The Opening of the Svalbard Seed Bank
Yesterday a new seed bank went into operation. It was funded by the Norwegian government, situated on the island of Spitzbergen, and destined to save seed crops should there be a global catastrophe.
It spawned a rush of anxious postings by food activists. Two things struck me.
First, that there are apparently about 1500 seed banks world wide. Wow. I had no idea. Never in the history of the world has there been such a widespread effort to save the babies of the world’s economic crops.
Second, that much of the commentary was more well meaning than well informed. Species loss is perhaps serious. Variety loss, in and of itself, is less so. Many, perhaps most, of the varieties of the world’s important economic species come and go. Lot’s have been created in the last hundred years. Perhaps all are worth saving. Perhaps not.
My go-to resource on all this is Steve Brush’s Farmer’s Bounty: Locating Crop Diversity in the Contemporary World. Dr Brush is both deeply committed to maintaining crop diversity and deeply knowledgeable about problems and strategies for doing so. He never falls into easy platitudes. Peach diversity, in California, for example, is increasing not decreasing. Old varieties of maize in Mexico (more on this later) are not necessarily disappearing with the arrival of the big seed companies. I’d say this book is required reading before any of us spout off on preserving crop diversity. Because it’s not the easiest read, I’m going to do what I’ve been promising myself for ages and go through it chapter by chapter in the coming weeks. I’ll post a synopsis here for anyone who is interested.
