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seedkeepers - Re: [Seed Keepers] Fort Knox of Food

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  • From: Anders Skarlind <Anders.Skalman@telia.com>
  • To: Seed Keepers <seedkeepers@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Seed Keepers] Fort Knox of Food
  • Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:56:23 +0100

Sam, I don't see this in black-and-white, but I am sceptical towards this kind of huge centralised "solution".
I see this mainly from a Swedish perspective, and conditions are different and worse in other parts of the world. It is possible I have not given this enough consideration. However let me tell a little more about what I know.
In Sweden the seed saving ngo Sesam, based completely on volutary work, has done more than the Nordic Gene Bank to collect and keep Swedish landraces of vegetables. There is also another small organisation, Allkorn, doing similar work in grains. However the Nordic Gene Bank has the best Nordic grain collection, and considerable benefit has been reaped from this, as Allkorn has been able to retrieve grain seed make old varieties available again. However there is I would say a constant battle between different interests: idealistic, personal career, academia, political, commercial.
The Nordic Gene Bank, like I think more or less all gene banks, is lagging behind in regrowing their seed. Meanwhile knowledge how to grow these varieties may be lost. Of course all seed must be regrown, reproduced, now and then. It doesn't live forever. And neither does the knowledge how to grow it.
There is more to tell but enough for now.
I see some point in governmental gene bank activity, but I think we should not rely on them for the safety of our seed. And I think they should put money into regrowing their seed rather than keeping it locked in in the Arctic.

I would be interested to know if you think of any specific examples when you say "no-one knows how easy it will be to maintain these seeds by growing them out".

Anders


At 21:11 2008-02-29, you wrote:
I was shocked by the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the announcement about the seed repository. Seems like it should be considered a positive development, considering that no-one knows how easy it will be to maintain these seeds by growing them out. -- Sam Brungardt, St. Paul, Minn.





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