Contemporary Issues

Contemporary Issues
April 27, 2010
“Thirteen million of forests are cleared every year, that’s an area the size of England, and off course the plant species which occur there are going the sameway,” Smith said. In America today where people are so concerned with what is new and trendy in fashion or what the latest model sports look like. Few stop to take time to appreciate the natural beautythe world provides for free. The future cannot be predicted. Conditions change. In agriculture, this is particularly true. This is why there is no such thing as an assured production. The best varietytoday may not be the best variety tomorrow. Tomorrow it may be obsolete. This is why the collection, maintenance, and use of diversity are necessary. Without this diversity, it is inconceivable thatagriculture would be able to maintain or improve its productivity. Supporting more than 6 billion people today assure the protection of 9 billion people in the future. So regardless of how muchdiversity once existed, and despite how much has been lost, what’s left is what we have to take care of. Keep agriculture going now and for as far as we can imagine into the future, so that we can protectand assure humanity.
The formal opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault deep inside an Arctic mountain on February 26, 2008 marks a turning point toward ensuring the crops that sustain us will notbe lost. The purpose of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is to provide insurance against both incremental and catastrophic loss of crop diversity. The Seed Vault offers guaranteed protection for one ofthe most important natural resources on earth. It serves as an essential element in a global system of facilities that conserve crop diversity and make it available for use in future generations. Givenits location and construction, the Seed Vault would likely survive almost anything. Properly dried and frozen, seed of most crops can be conserved for many years as long as the facility itself is...