What more can you ask for?
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the future of our food. There was a LiveScience.com article
(Click this link)'Doomsday' Seed Vault Stores 500,000 Crops, posted today, talking about the 500,000th seed to be stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, is a very cool place (no pun intended) I just learned about. Many specific seeds from strong growing seasons are stored in genebanks around the world. Some are sealed and others are experimented on to develop stronger, more disease resistant seedlings, but what happens if something goes wrong? A fire, a flood, an earthquake, a war? There must be some way to protect against these natural and manmade disasters, which can wipe out an entire genebank. Well the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is one place where copies of these "chosen" seeds end up.
ReplyDeleteLocated in the Arctic Archipelago and spearheaded by the government of Norway and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as many countries around the world, this vault was dug into the side of a Permafrost covered mountain where seeds can potentially live hundreds and possibly thousands of years.
Oh yea and the mountain is filled with tons of Polar Bears so that's cool too.
It really makes me think, what is our food going to be like in 100 years, in 1000 years? Can we continue to maintain local farms, when mass production decreases costs so dramatically making it difficult to compete? As our society moves towards quicker, faster and mass produced goods are we losing sight of where our food comes from?
I think it's important to keep an eye on not only the ingredients you consume, but where those ingredients are grown and developed as well. Just because something is organic does not mean it is okay to eat without checking where it is from. Just like any other multi-billion dollar business, these "organic" growers have lobbyists who are able to influence the definition of organic. The growth of organic does not stop the growth of industrial farms, which continue to put more question marks between us and the food we eat. The farm has really helped us understand that there is more to learn about our food sources, especially living in a major metropolitan city where produce has to be shipped in and not always locally grown. There are plenty of farmers' markets that offer locally grown food, which may be an interesting place to begin learning.
Please feel free to comment below and add any of your own insights.