Seeds hidden from disasters

2008/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Nekazaritza

The Global Seed Vault was inaugurated on Svalbard Island of the Arctic Circle on 26 February. The crypt consists of three rooms that are at the end of a 125 metre tunnel that enters the interior of a mountain. It will house samples of all or many of the species grown by farmers around the world. In fact, it has capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples and each sample can have hundreds of seeds.

The aim is to maintain the diversity of seeds used in agriculture to maintain current food production. In addition, if there were a catastrophe in a particular place, or around the world, they could restart with existing agriculture.

Being within a mountain of the Arctic Circle, its permafrost guarantees the necessary temperature and humidity conditions for the seeds. They will be stored at 18-20 degrees below zero and the degree of humidity will also be very low to ensure that the metabolic activity of the seeds is low.

However, this action, apparently without a dark side, has some drawbacks. On the one hand, it is assumed that they will keep the seeds in good condition and, if necessary, they will be valid when they leave. But they have not shown it at all. On the other hand, anyone cannot access or use these reserved seeds. It can only be done by members of certain entities and not by anyone who needs to grow at any given time. In addition, the last responsible of the warehouse is the Norwegian government. Today this government is considered correct and reliable, but it cannot be said if it will change.