Preserving agriculture one seed at a time

As the climate warms, flooding and drought become more frequent and new pests emerge. Farmers need heartier crops to feed a growing population and look to scientists to adapt more resilient varieties from existing ones.

For decades, agricultural scientists Cary Fowler and Geoffrey Hawtin have recognized the importance of seeds to the world’s agricultural future and worked to preserve them through crop genebanks. In 2008, they helped create the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in a mountainside in Norway.

The vault serves “a safety net” for the world’s 1,700 genebanks so a natural disaster or civil strife doesn’t wipe out a nation’s agriculture, Hawtin said. The vault now holds 1.3 million seed samples of 6,000 plant species from almost every country in the world. It would preserve them at lower temperatures should the power fail.

Fowler and Hawtin, who is from the United Kingdom, will receive the 2024 World Food Prize for their efforts to preserve crop biodiversity. The award recognizing breakthrough contributions toward improving the world’s food supply will be presented the week of October 29–31 in Des Moines, Iowa. Each year the award is presented around the time of World Food Day, October 16, which promotes efforts to bring everyone access to nutritious food.

Fowler and Hawtin have long supported international efforts to preserve and increase access to seeds needed to adapt more resilient crops. Fowler, who now serves as the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for global food security, said that adaptation requires crop “traits that are well positioned to deal with the challenges of any particular environment or human need. And that comes from having a diverse collection.”

The 150,000 samples of both wheat and rice stored in the vault represent “everything that those crops can be in the future,” he added.

Yet more must be done to feed a global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. Worldwide, 700 million people do not have enough food. And in Africa, higher temperatures, severe flooding and drought put increasing pressure on farmers’ yields.

In February 2023, under the special envoy’s leadership, the U.S., in collaboration with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the African Union, launched the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) to improve food security in Africa.

VACS seeks to build a resilient food system grounded in diverse, nutritious and climate-adapted crops grown in healthy, fertile soils. VACS is mobilizing governments, nongovernmental organizations, researchers and the private sector to prioritize nutrition within food systems by focusing on sustainable land management practices and climate-resilient crops that show tremendous opportunity to withstand extreme weather conditions.

Fowler noted that many of the crops VACS has identified have historically been grown by women. “It’s important to empower women,” Fowler said. “One of the ways you can do [that] in rural societies is by empowering the crops that they grow.”

The State Department is working with partners around the world to expand VACS beyond Africa. In August, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Community launched efforts to strengthen agriculture in Pacific Island nations.

And in September, the U.S. announced $5 million to advance VACS food security efforts in Guatemala, bringing total U.S. funding for VACS to over $150 million.

“A small amount of scientific and technical support for these crops could have a really big payoff in terms of yield,” Fowler said.