It's in the Vault

I will be MIA for a few days but I couldn't resist commenting on the newly opened Global Seed Vault in Norway. It looks like something from a James Bond movie, if Jimbo was a farmer. Built into a mountainside in a remote arctic area (can't you here the theme music rising?) this high-tech cavern will hold samples of different seeds from around the world. Norway is generously hosting seeds from other nations in the climate-controlled environment. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing 30 million dollars to pay for the seeds to be shipped from different nations.

God did a swell job of creating a biologically diverse planet and humans cultivated thousands of different plants for consumption. Then we got silly and narrowed down the number of cultivars and allowed corporations to dictate which plant species will be used for agriculture. In North America we have become hugely dependent on corn in just about everything. We don't realize that most of our sweet stuff is made with highly processed corn syrup. We have moved steadily toward monoculture in everything from rubber tree plants to bananas to...you name it.

So the seed vault is being described as a sort of a plant ark, which is a biblical allusion. The Genesis ark was built thanks to the imagination and faithfulness of that Noah fellow and his family to save the biodiversity of the animal world. As odd as the Norwegian vault may sound, it may be just as important and very real.