The International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) sent its final batch of rice seeds to the
Svalbard Global Seed Vault, dubbed the “Doomsday Vault,” in November
2010. IRRI deposited the largest shipment of 70,180 for the
inauguration of the Vault in February 2008. Following its last
shipment, IRRI now has the largest number of accessions, amounting to
112,807, for any single crop and its wild relatives kept in the Vault.
These are duplicates
of the rice diversity conserved in IRRI’s International Rice Genebank
(IRRI-IRG). Dr. Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton, evolutionary biologist
and IRRI’s T.T. Chang Genetic Resources Center head, assures that IRRI
takes every reasonable measure to make the collection in the IRRI-IRG
safe.
“The IRRI-IRG is
earthquake-proof, typhoon-proof, and flood-proof,” Dr. Sackville
Hamilton explains. “We also have an independent backup power supply to
protect against power cuts, and we keep a supply of spares in stock to
deal rapidly with equipment failure. We also have a backup collection
to the primary collection kept at IRRI that is untouched, but provides
immediate backup.”
Dr. Sackville Hamilton
said that, since 1980, IRRI has also been keeping another backup of
the IRRI-IRG collection at
Fort Collins,
Colorado,
in the United States. “The United States’ environmental and political
risks are different from those in the Philippines,” he further
explains. “This backup collection in
Fort Collins
adds to the safety measures being taken at IRRI.
“The collection kept
in Svalbard is our ultimate backup. We cannot conceive of any other
measure we could take to make it safer. We cannot think of a more
secure system to safeguard this vital resource.”
Life’s frozen cellar
The frozen mountains,
the isolation, and the polar bears that provide extra layers of
security are just some of the reasons why the world’s agricultural
heritage found itself a fortress in Svalbard, Norway.
According to the
Global Crop Diversity Trust, “The technical conditions of the site are
virtually perfect. The location inside the mountain increases security
and unparalleled insulation properties. The area is geologically
stable, humidity levels are low, and it has no measurable radiation
inside the mountain. The Vault is placed well above sea level (130
meters), far above the point of any projected sea-level rise.”
The Trust is a
public-private partnership that raises funds from individual,
corporate, and government donors to establish an endowment that will
provide complete and continuous funding for key crop collections.
The Trust explains
that, even if the supply of electricity gets cut off, the frozen
mountain and its thick rocks will keep the seeds frozen for a long
time. The Vault, constructed by the Norwegian government as a “service
to the world,” is managed under terms between the Global Crop
Diversity Trust, the Norwegian government, and the Nordic Genetic
Resource Center.
The International
Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2004
provided the platform through which an international legal framework
for conserving and accessing crop diversity, as well as building the
Vault, became a reality.
Taming the wild
Although thousands of
rice species exist around the world, only a few of these are being
cultivated. These cultivated rice varieties are naturally diverse.
This diversity, however, is not enough to build better varieties. It
is, in this case, more than in any other, that the extraordinary
diversity in rice and its wild relatives becomes crucial.
For decades,
scientists have been scouring the unbeaten path of the vast wild rice
gene pool to look for genes that allow them to develop rice that
provides more yield and is tolerant of stresses such as drought, heat,
flooding, and saline soil.
Among the major
setbacks to food production today is the increasing scarcity of
resources. Hence, we look more closely at rice, and at every other
crop species, to find ways to unlock the many secrets of its gene pool
and help it adapt, survive, and thrive despite the many challenges.
Such is the story of
“scuba rice”—the IRRI-bred variety that can withstand being submerged
under water for 2 weeks (see Scuba rice). Many years ago, an Indian
low-yielding rice variety called FR13A caught the imagination of
scientists due to one remarkable trait: flood tolerance. For years,
scientists looked for the genes that gave FR13A its flood-resistant
characteristic. And, when they found it, they named the gene “SUB1.”
Today, high-yielding
varieties that had been given the flood-resistance gene are helping
rice farmers cope with frequently flooded rice fields. The wonderful
story of the previously unremarkable FR13A highlights why the world
should be worried about vanishing plant species and rice varieties.
Treasure on loan
A nuclear holocaust
need not happen to spell doomsday for food sources. Every day, a crop
species is lost to typhoons, floods, war, and, sometimes, to simple
things like mismanagement or lack of a sustained power supply.
It is hard for some
people to appreciate the importance of conservation. But, thinking of
crop conservation as a way of keeping a good credit record may help,
because “biodiversity, the world’s most valuable resource, is on loan
to us from our children.”
Diversity is the
insurance for food security. Every time a species is lost, that
diversity narrows, which means that the number of options shrinks as
well. There is something “in” these vanishing varieties that is
priceless: genes. These genes hold the many answers to questions on
basic survival and sustaining life on the planet.
Scientists said that
warmer temperature causes lower yield for rice. They may not be able
to do something about the heat that gets trapped in the atmosphere,
but they can do something about the food. They can breed varieties
that can stand up to climate change.
Food for the next
generation
Backing up and
protecting the world’s diverse agricultural heritage are giving this
generation, and the next, options to get around nature’s roadblocks as
the human population grows, while the resources that are needed to
meet the corresponding demand for nourishment become scarce.
These “options” are
kept frozen, ready to be retrieved when events of the future require
it. It is a way of ensuring that food keeps coming even well after
this generation has passed on.
