Norway building 'doomsday vault' to protect seeds

[KimB]

The threat is from strangefungi and diseases that can and do wipe out crops around the world. Kenya lost 66% of its wheat crop recently through a newly discovered fungi and old seeds may be resistant to a pandemic.

I'm not sure that's really a problem that can be avoided as long as crops are largely homogeneous throughout a region. For a historical reference, take the potato blight of Ireland over a hundred and fifty years ago. Because the Irish were, at the time, so heavily dependent upon potatoes, when the blight struck and wiped out most of the crop, the Irish were subjected to a massive famine.

But genetic engineering does give us the possibility of generating crops which are resistant to such diseases. We may never be able to completely prevent them, but we can keep them from impacting later crops.

 

[DudeMiester]

You can migitage the risk by mixing seeds with varying resistances and characteristics. Sure, there's a chance that a disease will wipe everything out, but it's many times less.

 

[KimB]

You can migitage the risk by mixing seeds with varying resistances and characteristics. Sure, there's a chance that a disease will wipe everything out, but it's many times less.

Oh, certainly. But I'm not sure it would happen without government intervention, as that's sure to be more expensive.