Name: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food
Uploaded: 2009-08-31T01:00:00Z
Duration: 16 min 48 s
Description: The wheat, corn and rice we grow today may not thrive in a future threatened by climate change. Cary Fowler takes us inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vast treasury buried within a frozen mountain in Norway, that stores a diverse group of food-crop seeds ... for whatever tomorrow may bring.

The wheat, corn and rice we grow today may not thrive in a future threatened by climate change. Cary Fowler takes us inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vast treasury buried within a frozen mountain in Norway, that stores a diverse group of food-crop seeds ... for whatever tomorrow may bring.

One seed at a time, protecting the future of food

The survival of agriculture depends on preserving the vast genetic diversity within crops like wheat, rice, and beans. Over 6,800 named apple varieties in the United States have vanished since the 1800s, showing how quickly diversity can disappear. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, carved into Arctic rock, now safeguards hundreds of thousands of unique seeds as a backup for world agriculture. Without such diversity, crops cannot adapt to climate change, and global food security hangs in the balance.

Crop Diversity Is Humanity’s Lifeline Against Catastrophe

Since the Talk: The journey of the "doomsday vault"

agriculture

biodiversity

climate change

environment

food

plants

ecology

Anthropocene

natural disaster

gardening

TED Stage Talk

Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food