Seed banks
Seed banks are specialized repositories that preserve the genetic material of seeds from various plant species, playing a crucial role in promoting biodiversity and safeguarding the future of global food supplies. They emerged in response to the narrowing focus of modern agriculture, which often prioritizes a limited range of crops, leading to the risk of extinction for many plant species. Seed banks serve as a backup of genetic material, offering protection against threats such as wars, environmental disasters, and other unforeseen events.
Globally, there are approximately 1,700 seed banks, ranging from small, community-based facilities to larger organizations like the Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa, which preserves over 25,000 seed varieties and emphasizes the cultural heritage of plants. One of the most notable seed banks is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, often referred to as the "Doomsday Vault," designed to withstand various global threats and store millions of seed samples as a safeguard against agricultural disasters. With the support of organizations like the Global Crop Diversity Trust, seed banks play a vital role in maintaining Earth's agricultural biodiversity and ensuring the resilience of food systems worldwide.
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Subject Terms
Seed banks
DEFINITION: Repositories for the genetic material contained within seeds of agricultural and other plant species
Because modern agricultural practices focus on only a limited number of crops, seed banks have been established to help promote biodiversity and protect the world’s future food supply by preserving the seeds, or genetic material, of thousands of plant species that might otherwise become extinct. Seed banks also provide a backup of genetic plant material in the event of wars, accidents, or environmental disasters on a local or global scale.
Modern-day seed banks, also referred to as gene banks, are based on an agricultural tradition that has persisted for thousands of years: saving seeds from one season to ensure a supply that can be used to plant crops the next season. Seeds have also been passed down from one generation of farmers to the next, but as agricultural mass production has increased around the world, thousands of plant species have been irrevocably lost simply because no farmers or agricultural corporations chose to grow them over a period of time.
By the early twenty-first century, approximately 1,700 organizations identifying themselves as seed or gene banks were in operation worldwide. These banks can range from small, informal facilities that specialize in certain types of seeds to larger organizations such as the Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit organization established in 1975 to preserve not only the genetic but also the cultural and historical heritages of plants. Located on 360 hectares (890 acres) in Decorah, Iowa, the Seed Savers Exchange maintains more than 25,000 varieties of fruit, flower, vegetable, and herb seeds. This group goes beyond the activities traditionally conducted by seed banks in that it makes many uncommon seed varieties available for sale, and it plants its seed stock on a rotating basis in order to generate new seeds and ensure that the plant species remain part of the planet’s active ecosystem.
One of the world’s most impressive seed banks is the vast Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility opened by the Norwegian government in 2008 with assistance from the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Built inside a mountain on an island within the Arctic Circle, this high-tech seed bank has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples; it maintains a constant interior climate in spite of temperature variations in the surrounding permafrost. Nicknamed the “Doomsday Vault” by the media, it is designed to withstand nuclear warfare and terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters such as flooding, and is therefore considered to be a global “insurance policy” in the event of agricultural disaster. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is actually a bank for banks; most of its “depositors” are smaller seed banks around the world that are located in areas that are geographically or politically less stable. It thus represents a vital step in efforts to protect the earth’s plant biodiversity. The Global Crop Diversity Trust has the further goal of providing funding and other support for multiple crop repositories around the world.
Bibliography
Fenner, Michael, and Ken Thompson. “Soil Seed Banks.” In The Ecology of Seeds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Fowler, Cary. “The Svalbard Seed Vault and Crop Security.” BioScience 58, no. 3 (2008): 190-191.
Rosner, Hillary. “The Gatherers.” Popular Science, January, 2008, 60-64, 66, 91.
Shea, Neil. “Norway’s Ark.” National Geographic, June, 2007, 14-21.
"Svalbard Global Seed Vault." Crop Trust, 2024, www.croptrust.org/work/svalbard-global-seed-vault/. Accessed 23 July 2024.