02.15.07
Should Communities Support Seed Banks?
Norway, awash in oil revenue and significantly at risk if an abrupt climate change event occurs, has been working on a seed bank. They are planning to hollow out a mountain, install failsafe climate control and rent out space to governments to store seeds against cataclysmic disasters like abrupt climate change, asteroid strikes or nuclear war.
Planning is great and they have the money to do it, but if one of these disasters occurs how are the client governments going to get to the seed bank? Who, exactly, will be authorized to make the withdrawal? Somehow I can’t picture an asteroid hitting the Midwest and the Agricultural Department riding out 10 years later, after the dust settles, to claim our corn. (Of course they did find the one mad cow in the US, so maybe I am underestimating them.)
More to the point, the USAD appears to maintain a seed bank in Colorado. Would it make more sense for communities or regions to fund local programs at local agricultural colleges? Any disaster big enough to wipe our seed stock is almost certainly going to wipe out our means to travel long distances to replace it.
