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A seed bank is "a facility used to store seeds of various crops and wild plants, in an effort to maintain biodiversity. Seed banks can be found scattered all over the world, established by governments and organizations concerned about crop diversity."
"Think of a seed bank as a savings account," writes Debra Ronca at HowStuffWorks.com. "Seeds are 'deposited' into secure storage with the intention of 'withdrawing' them in the future when they are needed. Just as you might keep money saved for an unforeseen emergency, scientists are saving up seeds to use for replanting in case certain crops die out or are destroyed. When stored correctly, seeds can remain viable for decades or even centuries."
Aside from crop diversity, Ronca offers other reasons why we need to store and preserve seeds: Climate change, natural disasters, disease, man-made disaster, and research. Along these lines, a "doomsday" seed vault went into operation in February 2008. The Svalbard International Seed Vault, explains Julia Layton of HowStuffWorks.com, "will house samples of every variety of crop seed available in every country in the world. The vault's purpose is safeguard agricultural biodiversity in the event that nuclear war, climate change, a meteor hit or another Earth-shattering event destroys all current plant life in the world or in a particular region." Considering that the United Nations has put the percentage of genetic diversity already lost to ecological damage at 75 percent, let?s hope this is not a case of too little, too late.
