SEED BANK

With recent global warming and climactic change, it is scientifically predicted that temperatures will dramatically increase within the next few decades. Seed banks have been attempted, but failed due to temperature inaccuracy or human error. Recently, a new seed bank was created; “The Norwegian government paid to build the vault in a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the remote Svalbard islands between Norway and the North Pole. Building began last year” (CNN). Some of the other seed banks were not successful because they did not keep the seeds at a constant temperature; but in the Svalbard Seed Bank, the seeds will be kept at a constant freezing temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius, and the seeds will be able to last up to a thousand years! (Reuters).

“A third of the planet's plants are categorized as threatened with extinction, which could have dramatic effects on human life, trade and the environment” (Reuters); it is critical to have a mass storage of all seeds in case of a catastrophic disaster. The vault is built 130 meters inside a frozen mountain (427 feet) and is able to withstand a variety of threats such as “ war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management” (CNN).

With the current economic situation that our generation is faced with, the Svaldbard Seed Bank is a good location in case of insufficient funding. “Each seed costs about 2,000 pounds to collect and store” (Reuters); the Seed Bank contains approximately 400,000 seeds, and is able to hold an estimated “4.5 million distinct samples of seeds—encompassing almost every variety of most important food crops in the world” (CNN).

With the recent terrorist attack on 9/11, and natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, tsunamis in Haiti, or a major earthquake, the vault in Norway is a global imperative to keeping our earth’s seeds safe. An interesting fact about the Svalbard Seed Bank is that no one person has all the codes for the entrance of the Global Vault (NYT). The Global Seed Vault is the most high tech and secure seed bank we’ve seen yet and is our best bet for human survival in case of a disaster.