Thursday, November 7, 2013

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

Cary Fowler talks about an issue that very unheard of. His talk started with the issues of extinction but in relation to apples. As he got into the article he talked more and more about the different breeds and the diversity of seeds. All the information was new to me, like the 7000 different types of rice. Cary then talks about conserving and preserving the different seeds to keep the seed biodiversity. He argues that with climate change coming we might need different adaptable types of seeds uncase of new diseases, climate and pests. With that argument Cary has built a seed bank in the mountains of Norway for preserving different seeds from around the world of the same species. Many include rice, wheat and other crops that have been around for ages. At the end of the talk he tells us that he has seeds from every county in the world. I think what he is doing is a great thing. You don’t see too much conservation and preservation of crops as much as we do flora or in animals. To be honest I didn’t know there were such different breeds of common seeds all around the world. His motive is smart as well; if we don’t protect these natural seeds the invasive and corporate seeds will take over and destroy the diversity.


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