The human race or what is left of it may be saved from an apocalyptic event or a global catastrophe by a “doomsday vault”. This Global Seed Vault, essentially a huge safety deposit box, holds a vital resource for the future of mankind. A million variety of seeds are stored here in the bowels of an icy mountain on an island above the Arctic Circle between Norway and the North Pole. The location is in a vast white expanse of frozen emptiness, the farthest north accessible on a commercial airplane.
The Svalbard ‘doomsday’ seed vault was built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disastersThis huge steel safety deposit box holds the world’s largest collection of agricultural biodiversity, with 13,000 years of agricultural history began in preserving samples in 2008.
It was precisely for its remoteness that Svalbard, Norway was chosen as the location of the vault. “It is away from the places on earth where you have war and terror. It is situated in a safe place,” says Bente Naeverdal, property manager who oversees the day-to-day operation of the vault. Its only neighbour is a similar repository buried away from the dangers of the world: the Arctic World Archive, which preserves data for the world’s governments and private institutions.
I can’t help thinking of my father’s garden which he toiled over every spring from planting of seeds to harvesting the produce in the fall. As a youngster, all he ever expected of me was to pull weeds as they inevitably grew. I was reluctant to do so and resisted at every turn. Now when I imagine the importance of seeds and possibly saving a starving world, I am more than a little embarrassed. And my next conversation with my Dad who passed in 2010, I will unabashedly mention this very thing.
However, this Arctic stronghold of world’s seeds inexplicably flooded after permafrost melting in 2017. Designed to preserve the world’s crops and plants in the event of global disaster, it couldn’t withstand the greatest one facing our planet: global warming. No seeds were lost but the ability of the rock vault to provide failsafe protection against all disasters was now threatened by climate change raising questions of how the structure will be able to survive in the future. “It was supposed to operate without the help of humans, but now we are watching the seed vault 24 hours a day”, Naeverdal said.
The vault managers are now waterproofing the facility and digging trenches to channel melt and rainwater away. They’ve also installed pumps in case the vault floods again. Naeverdal said, “We have to find solutions. It is a big responsibility and we take it very seriously. We are doing this for the world. This method is supposed to last for eternity.”
This Doomsday seed bank is a two-way street. Withdrawing seeds for areas in need might be Lebanon or Morocco. That needed surge for their agriculture growth fortifies the seed bank’s importance. The continued commitment to re-depositing these seeds back to the seed vault from the same countries demonstrates the importance of the vault and the global system of conservation. At the same time, it shows that collective efforts to conserve this diversity for tomorrow continues to be strong.
I again considered my father’s interest in planting and although he wouldn’t have known, he would have been thrilled with the concept of high-rise farming right in the heart of Toronto or Ottawa. An area of land would be converted into a facility on which a multi-story building would have been constructed and important food crops grown in building floor-levels on soil-less media, employing mainly techniques in hydroponics. Vertical farming technologies would increase the possibilities of cultivating crops much more efficiently.
The urgency of changing the way humanity cultivates its food is partially due to people choosing to live in cities, 80 per cent by the year 2050. That, plus a predicted world increase in population by then of 3 billion necessitates vertical farming to avoid horrible circumstances to live under.
It seems to me that regardless of what dramatic changes the world will bring, there are always those quietly working away in laboratories to discover means to mitigate the significant adjustments mankind will have to make. The Doomsday Vault and vertical farming are only two of those advancements.
