Is Man Destroying His Own Food Supply? -Variety - Essential to Life

Seed Banks-Insurance Against Extinction? 

The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England, has embarked on what it hails as "one of the largest international conservation projects ever undertaken"-the Millennium Seed Bank Project.  The principal aims of the project are  (1) to collect and conserve 10 percent-over 24,000 species-of the world's seed-bearing flora by 2010 and (2) well before then, to collect and conserve seeds of the entire United Kingdom native seed-bearing flora.  Other countries have also established seed banks, or gene banks, as they are sometimes called. 

Biologist John Tuxill states that at least 90 percent of the millions of seed stored in seed banks are of valuable food and commodity plants, such as wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, potatoes, onions, garlic, sugarcane, cotton, soybeans, and other beans to name a few.  But seeds are living organisms that remain viable only as long as their internal energy reserves last. So how dependable are seed banks?

Next time: Is Man Destroying His Own Food Supply? - Variety - Essential to Life/Woes at the Bank

From the Awake! magazine