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Securing our agriculture before the end of the world
Information
Video published by Veritasium
Derek Muller and Bente Naeverdal (director) take us on a guided tour of the “Svalbard Global Seed Vault”, located about 1,300 km from the North Pole.
This huge fridge, buried in tunnels deep inside a mountain, is closed 350 days a year.
The idea is to keep as many seeds of all kinds as possible cold (about -18°), in order to preserve our plants in case of hard times.
Companies and/or governments send their boxes full of seeds, which are checked only at the airport, then sealed and stored in the vault. Svalbard employees are not allowed to open the boxes.
It is forbidden to deposit drugs, illegal products, or genetically modified seeds there. However, since they cannot verify anything, this global seed bank has to trust its clients through a contract.
They sometimes receive strange requests from people who want to store personal seeds; one man has already asked if he could store his sperm...
Bente Naeverdal also explains that this kind of agricultural backup is not only meant for the end of the world.
The climate may change, and a hundred years later it may become necessary to retrieve old seeds from an old plant variety that can better withstand a dry, humid, hot, or cold climate.
The seed vault in Syria exploded, so they recovered all their seeds stored in Svalbard in order to rebuild their own personal seed bank.
Fortunately, there are many storage areas like this one to ensure that we never lose plant species.
Securing our agriculture before the end of the world
Information
Video published by Veritasium
Derek Muller and Bente Naeverdal (director) take us on a guided tour of the “Svalbard Global Seed Vault”, located about 1,300 km from the North Pole.
This huge fridge, buried in tunnels deep inside a mountain, is closed 350 days a year.
The idea is to keep as many seeds of all kinds as possible cold (about -18°), in order to preserve our plants in case of hard times.
Companies and/or governments send their boxes full of seeds, which are checked only at the airport, then sealed and stored in the vault. Svalbard employees are not allowed to open the boxes.
It is forbidden to deposit drugs, illegal products, or genetically modified seeds there. However, since they cannot verify anything, this global seed bank has to trust its clients through a contract.
They sometimes receive strange requests from people who want to store personal seeds; one man has already asked if he could store his sperm...
Bente Naeverdal also explains that this kind of agricultural backup is not only meant for the end of the world.
The climate may change, and a hundred years later it may become necessary to retrieve old seeds from an old plant variety that can better withstand a dry, humid, hot, or cold climate.
The seed vault in Syria exploded, so they recovered all their seeds stored in Svalbard in order to rebuild their own personal seed bank.
Fortunately, there are many storage areas like this one to ensure that we never lose plant species.
Securing our agriculture before the end of the world
Information
Video published by Veritasium
Derek Muller and Bente Naeverdal (director) take us on a guided tour of the “Svalbard Global Seed Vault”, located about 1,300 km from the North Pole.
This huge fridge, buried in tunnels deep inside a mountain, is closed 350 days a year.
The idea is to keep as many seeds of all kinds as possible cold (about -18°), in order to preserve our plants in case of hard times.
Companies and/or governments send their boxes full of seeds, which are checked only at the airport, then sealed and stored in the vault. Svalbard employees are not allowed to open the boxes.
It is forbidden to deposit drugs, illegal products, or genetically modified seeds there. However, since they cannot verify anything, this global seed bank has to trust its clients through a contract.
They sometimes receive strange requests from people who want to store personal seeds; one man has already asked if he could store his sperm...
Bente Naeverdal also explains that this kind of agricultural backup is not only meant for the end of the world.
The climate may change, and a hundred years later it may become necessary to retrieve old seeds from an old plant variety that can better withstand a dry, humid, hot, or cold climate.
The seed vault in Syria exploded, so they recovered all their seeds stored in Svalbard in order to rebuild their own personal seed bank.
Fortunately, there are many storage areas like this one to ensure that we never lose plant species.
