The best way to save seeds and diversity is in farmers fields. They do the most crop development and preservation. Instead of looking after small diverse farmers (whose farming techniques can feed local populations and store soil carbon) there are huge pushes to move industrial agriculture into places like Africa. The Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa - funded by the Gates foundation and Rockefeller foundation is one example.

The problem seems to be that nature thrives on diversity and specific localities. Even if all the seeds are stored in Norway there is no guarantee they will be fit for purpose when they need to be used. Some seeds need to be grown frequently. Seeds adapt to where they are grown. So if these seeds are grown out in Norway they will become adapted to the climate there or to any artificial conditions they are put into. Surely this is not what we want to happen.

The best way to preserve seed is to support the farmers where these crops come from. The UN IAASTD report looked at how to feed the world. It took 3 years and involved 400 scientists from all over the world. The conclusion was that small farmers and agroecological agriculture needs support and would have many social and economic benefits in addition to feeding everyone.

Business as usual will starve us all. That is because industrial profit driven farming wants uniform crops that all ripen at the same time for harvest. They want a very limited range of varieties - witness how few brands of tomatoes or apples we have. Apparently most chickens are one of 3 breeds and most of them are highly genetically uniform as they are all bred for the same reasons - to grow quickly.

We have a choice - small diverse farms and farmers with lots of different crops suited to their area plus wild areas as places where wild plants can flourish OR industrial farming with a tiny range of crops with very little diversity within them.

Great to see seed vaults like this growing their stock which can only help to ensure seed security and biodiversity.

Seed banks are crucial to ensuring we don't lose some of the heirloom varieties many of them more adapted to various climates.

Similarly, the scientists at the International Potato Centre in South America have collected vast numbers of seed potato which are continually replenished and planted out by Peruvian farmers.

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s2301598.htm

It is pleasing to see even in Australia, many seed saver organisations and community groups springing up where seed can be swapped and saved for future use.

I agree with lillian's previous comments. While I'm in agreement with the overall intent of the so-called 'doomsday' vault, I'm rather more cynical about its ability to deliver on those intentions.

The whole premise is based on fundamentally flawed assumptions. A single centralised repository of seeds as a 'safety net' creates a massive "single point of failure" making it vulnerable to a number of scenarios. Despite its location being chosen for lack of tectonic activity, just days before it opened, Svalbard was the centre of Norway's largest earthquake in history.

It must be remembered: its only valuable if a single, massive event wipes out all food sources worldwide. No event in history has occurred yet that has achieved this. Are we living in unnecessary fear?

Most seed contributions have been collected from their natural biodiverse-rich environments without the permission of the traditional seed owners who have developed countless varieties over the millenia. Transfer of ownership from those farmers to a central authority leaves the farmers out of the trusteeship arrangements, not to mention limiting their access to the seeds.

By placing the "keys" into a small number of hands limits access to the few. With many financial contributions from private interests such as Syngenta and DuPont/Pioneer Hi-bred who now have access to a "one stop shop" of large stores of the world's germplasm, one can only wonder what genetically modified (and by extension, intellectual property ownership) motivations they may have.

The Norwegian government is ultimately responsible for the vault. While they may be a stable government now, there's no guarantee they will be in the future. Policies may change casting doubt on the future control of the facility.

Plant biodiversity belongs with the millions of farmers, who have successfully nurtured, developed and bred millions of varieties of foods since we developed agriculture over 10,000 years ago. The world has witnessed many catastrophic events over the millenia, and we survived for having the genetic sources of our future in distributed hands to develop and adapt to the conditions of the day. And so it must remain so.

We may be inadvertently saddling the rat and/or cockroach scholars of the future with a great bunch of 'feral' living fossils that ought to have been rendered extinct by the 'Great Human Meltdown' that came 66M years after the Jurassic Asteroid.

I fear the genetic ownership of this endeavor, the patent system as it is now applied. Is it possible for a profit company to use the store as a supply for future profit motive, thru patent?
fluff