Seeds in the Arctic
The world's largest seed collection is being developed under the permafrost on the Arctic Sea island of Spitzbergen. The tens of thousands of varieties of wheat, corn and beans stored there could even survive a nuclear war. The survival of many crop plant could depend on it.....more
1 comment:
This project will save seeds but little more. It extends from the same reductionist view which sees species as having an existence unrelated to context as characterizes patenting of species and genetic engineering. Plant domestication is tightly interwoven with cultural development and the life, times, knowledge and places of the peoples that different cultures are associated with. All the different strains of domesticated plants assume immense working knowledge about context, manner of cultivation, when and where seeds are to be planted, the soil requirements, the techniques of growing and so forth. All the various strains of seeds have furthermore have been selected according to inscrutiable cultural values. The mere fact that seeds are threatened is because we've been systematically destroying the immense diversity of cultures which brought them into existence, and what we should be saving is human cultures, peoples and their environments, not storing away seeds. You will never be able to rebuild agriculture from this collection any more than you could rebuild human societies and cultures from museums.
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