seed

In the wake of global warming and the genetic manipulation of seeds, many countries around the world are starting seed banks.

The latest seed bank will freeze seeds inside a mountain in Norway called Svalbard, where they will stay frozen and dry even if glaciers melt and sea levels rise. CNN quotes agricultural expert Cary Fowler as saying, “It will be the best freezer in the world by several orders of magnitude. The seeds will be safe there for decades?Svalbard is a safety backup?and we hope we never have to use it.”

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Norway has carved a deep vault into the side of a frozenmountain, in a secret location on an isolated Arctic island.This being Norway, it’s not a hidden nuclear weapons cache,it contains?SEEDS.

CNN reports that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault willeventually hold about 3 million of the world’s crop seeds,all stored in case ofglobalcatastrophe. Agriculture Minister Terje Riis-Johansen callsit a “Noah’s Ark on Svalbard.” There are already 1,400 seedbanks around the world, but Norway wants its seed vault tohold duplicates of all of these.

The trust’s executive secretary Cary Fowler says, “Thisfacility will provide a practical means to re-establishcrops obliterated by major disasters.”

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