WEBVTT - How Seed Banks Work 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.480 Josh, my friend. If you are a listener of ours 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:08.319 and you live in Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Austin, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, Kansas, 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:10.319 or right here in Atlanta, you can come see us 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.520 on tour starting in August and finishing up in November. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.480 Is that right? Yeah, that's right man. It's our two 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:21.360 thousand and seventeen North America Monsters of Podcasting Tour. That's 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:23.520 what I like the sounds of that. Eddie van Halen 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.280 is opening, Yeah he is, but not really, no, not really. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.720 But you can find out all the information and all 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.640 the deats at s y s K live dot com 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:35.680 are Squarespace Live touring home on the web, and we 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:40.720 hope to see everyone out there. Welcome to Stuff you 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:49.879 should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.839 welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:57.400 Chuck Bryant, Jerry rolland this is us stuff you should know. 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.600 I'm just trying new stuff. I mean, we're coming up 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:04.520 on a thousand episodes. Man, you've got to keep it 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.520 fresh somehow. So I tried the A team. You've actually 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.200 done that like seventy six times, the same one. Kidding, 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.520 It's probably true. Though. Uh, if you were a seed, 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.720 what seed would you be? I would be a pumpkin seed. 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:23.119 Oh wow, because you know you won't get eaten. Oh 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.480 I don't know. I like pumpkin pie so well, and 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.160 people toast pumpkin seeds, so yeah, I'm way off base there. Yep, 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.440 what else you got, however? Mind no pumpkin seed? Bam. 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.399 I would be a watermelon seed because they remind me 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.360 of my grandfather. That's sweet. How do they grow those 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.760 seedless watermelons? Huh uh, you're a watermelon seed, you should know. 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.960 Or the square ones? Yeah, those are cool too. They 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.960 cost like sixty dollars in Japan. Really, yeah, they're really expensive. 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:56.720 I would have one just that have it. I would 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.920 like shell lack it so it would never die, right, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.520 and just keep it in my fridge for a conversation piece. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:04.920 It's not a bad idea, man. Or actually I took 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.400 that back. I'm gonna start marketing fake square watermelons as 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:14.600 conversation starters or refrigerator magnets shaped like square water mountains. 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:21.280 What about that? Hmm? All right, and they call that 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.800 running running something into the ground. Um, I've got something 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.720 for you. You in the food Fads episode, asked me 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.160 what my go to crock pot recipe was, and I 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.280 told you, and then I was like, okay, moving on, 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.359 and I upon listening to it because I don't know 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:41.360 if everybody knows this or not, but you and I 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:46.280 all listened to the episodes and Jerry before we release them, um, 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.480 and I was like, I didn't ask Chuck what his 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.280 crock pot recipe? What did you, Chuck? I didn't. What 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:58.360 is your go to crock pot recipe? Do you know 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:03.480 what it is? No? I don't. If it's not, um, no, 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.000 I'll tell you what it is. It is a a 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:11.040 turkey ghoulsh surprise. That sounds good. So just some ground 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.720 turkey and some onion and green pepper and red pepper 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.560 and uh all manner of spices. And you can also 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:23.280 throw in like eggplant or squash or you know kind 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.520 of any veg veggie like that and chunk it up. 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.080 That sounds good and just spice it up real good, 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.120 throw it in that crock pot. Uh, maybe add a 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.960 little chicken broth or something. Uh do they have turkey broth? Yeah? 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.240 They do? Okay, sure, Well, then don't be weird. I 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.119 don't check. I don't I don't think chicken broth would 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.160 clash with turkey too bad, but yeah, probably turkey broth 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.040 would be better. Well, you may not know something in 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.280 your mouth might be disturbing and you're just like, something's 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.360 not quite right. So what's the surprise that you're using 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.480 chicken broth in a turkey based dish? Is it like 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.000 a human thumb? The surprise? I tried the thumb, but 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:05.000 that's much of us twice twice, yeah, because they only 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:09.080 have two thumbs, got you? Now? I know? The surprises 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.000 is our lentils. Oh yeah, that's nice. So then you 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.920 dump a bunch of lentils in there. Um maybe, I 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:17.000 mean you could throw it all in there at the 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.359 beginning if you, but they'll get kind of really gushy, 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.520 but maybe towards the intoso lentils in there, and then 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.480 it all just cooks up to a big kind of 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.000 soupy mess and then you can eat it for a week. Well, 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.559 the next time there's a house Stuff Works weekly book 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.080 club meeting, you've got to bring that to the pot luck. Okay, right, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:40.200 all right, because I want to try it done our 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.840 lentils seeds because that'd be a great segue. But I'm 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.000 almost a hundred percent sure that I would be wrong 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.080 in saying, well, lentils are seeds. I think it's a legum. 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.640 It is a lagoon, but it is a laguma seed. Well, 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.159 you didn't ask me that. I don't have any idea, 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:58.080 although they are protecting lagoons and seed banks, so okay, okay, 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.400 Well then they're probably not seeds, but they're pretty close, 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.719 so we'll use that as a seguay. How about that? Yeah, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.240 And you know what's funny is we uh could have 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.520 sworn that we did this one, or at the very 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.919 least did the doomsday vault. And I think we covered 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.080 the doomsday vault in the video, but we we did 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.680 touch on it in Well the Moon Safe Humanity. Yeah, 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:19.480 that's a good one. But I went back this is 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.240 when we had transcripts, and it was a funny one 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.280 to read because we brought it up without researching it 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.000 off the top of our head, which always gets us 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.559 in trouble, and just sort of chatted a minute about 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.160 the doomsday vault and then said, you know, don't hold 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:34.760 us to anything because we this wasn't supposed to be 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.880 a part of the show, so we didn't really cover it. No, 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.280 and we certainly didn't do a whole episode on all right, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.080 and we're not going to this time. Because even though 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:48.320 the Doomsday Vault better known as the small small Bard 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:53.960 Global Seed Bank, which is in small Bard, Norway, which 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.640 is close to Long Year Be in Norway, which is 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:03.719 the closest town to the North Pole, right, Um, this 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.760 seed bank is hands down the most famous seed bank 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.760 in the entire world. It's run by technocrats who really 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:15.120 know how to work the media, right, But it's far 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:17.520 from the only one. There are a lot of other 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.840 seed banks out there, and even the whole concept of 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.000 seed banking in general is pretty interesting. So it's fall 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.560 Bard will be the star. If we're a band, would 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:32.040 be seed Banks featuring the stylings of small Bard Global 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.400 seed Bank. That's probably that should be the title of 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.960 this episode. I thought you could say featuring the stylings 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.640 of small Bard Globalstein and that sounded like a like 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.800 a a small time magician that's great, or an accordion act. 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.480 Good stuff. Um, all right, well, let's get to it. 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:53.200 This one, by the way, it was written by my 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.640 friend Debbie. I noticed you remember Debbie, Debbie Ronka, my 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:01.599 buddy from New Jersey and uh so flemental material. You 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.800 found a really great article on the doomsday vault. What 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.080 was that from the Guardian or yeah, that was by 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:12.840 um Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian from May two fifteen. Yeah, 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.040 that's one of my favorite kinds of articles is when 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:20.040 they profile something and then it's set up as like, 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.560 you know, the sunrise is early in Norway and and 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:29.120 Schfinn gets out of his yurt and trudges across the 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.200 glacier and so it's sort of couched in this story 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.440 of the the dude who works there, one of the guys. 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:36.960 But then you get all the deats along the way. 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.559 It's very cool. Yeah, that's that's called a long read 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.880 or long form. Yeah. And actually there's two really great sites, 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.240 ones called long form and one's called long read once 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.080 a dot Common ones a dot Org. I can never 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.480 remember which, but if you like that kind of writing, 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.800 that's all those sites are, just page after page after 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.000 page of links to articles like that. Yes, and in fact, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.040 to our buddy, uh Joshua Bearman, uh huh, great writer 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.760 of long form. He has his own little shingle called 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.760 Epic Magazine. If you're looking for like those really great. Basically, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.120 people mind the that site to make movies. They're such 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:19.160 good stories. Yeah, yeah, well he he wrote the magazine 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:24.320 article that um uh far yeah, not Fargo. Argo, the 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.320 Ben Affleck movie was based on. Yeah, we would be cool. 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:30.360 The funny part about that slip up is the Coen 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.360 Brothers at the beginning of Fargo say like this is 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.480 based on a true story, which is not true at all. Right. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.679 He also wrote a really great one um about California 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.640 surfer gang Um that smuggled pot out of like Coronado 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:50.200 Island in the seventies, and it is just begging to 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:52.600 be made into a movie. If it hasn't been yet, 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.959 I think it's optioned. Surely it is that right, Coronado 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.200 High yep. And I'm pretty sure Barman wrote that back 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.360 in like two says the internet. Yea, so put down 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.880 your streaming TV shows for God's saken, I would say, 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:09.360 read a book, but at the very least read a 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.520 long form article. Yeah. Can can I get on a 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.319 soapbox for a second, We'll talk about seeds eventually, everybody 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:20.319 just be quiet. So the whole concept of their being 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.240 TV everywhere and like you can take TV to the 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.160 beach now you don't have to talk to anybody. You 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.920 can like watch TV on the subway. That's That's that 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.800 bothers me. Chuck it bothers me, like to my core, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.800 And I know that makes me very unpopular. I don't care. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.160 I stand with Josh. You know, Emily and I have 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.360 been listening. We've been sitting around in a room at 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:48.160 night together in silence and listening to s town Oh Cool, 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.040 which I've I've forgotten how fun it is because I 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.160 usually listen to podcasts on my own, like in my car. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.120 But just to sit around, like with your loved one 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.640 and listen to something that's kind of neat too, yeah, 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:00.319 you have somebody to look at and be like, oh 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:05.440 can you believe that? Man? All right, I'll bet everybody 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.760 thinks we sit around and listen to podcasts together. Can 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:13.080 you believe that? Alright? Alright? Seed banks? Sorry, So, Debbie 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.640 Ranka makes a really great point that you think of 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:20.400 seed banks as this probably something new from you know, 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.800 the environmental movement, probably something from the nineties, maybe as 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.760 far back as that, But she says, no, no, seed 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:33.400 banks are a concept as old as agriculture. Basically that 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.480 in the in the cradle of agriculture, Mesopotamia, which is 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:42.440 present day Iraq. They have found seed banks um as 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:47.840 old as eighties, seven hundred and fifty years. So, UM, 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:52.880 the seeds stores back then, we're protecting, uh, the seeds 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.360 from animals, from weather, that kind of stuff. Pretty basic stuff, right, 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.800 But the concepts the same. It's that that you need 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.920 seed from one harvest to create the next harvest. And 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.640 so even back then, there's evidence that it was highly 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:12.439 ritualized collecting seeds and then protecting them in important places. Yeah, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.400 and UH, whether it is certainly something that we're still 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.040 guarding against uh to the extreme. That's one of the 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.120 reasons we we have seed banks today. But UM, one 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.839 of the main reasons is crop diversity. Um. If you 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.480 if you think that corn you're eating is just corn, 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.120 or rice you're eating is just rice, or even you 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.640 know bosmati rice or jasmine rice or did the Big 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:42.120 two or sushi rice. Uh, you'd be in for a 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.320 big surprise if you knew that there were thousands and 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.520 thousands of varieties of all of these crops, these staple crops. 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.480 And UM diversity is the key because we've seen throughout 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.959 history when bad things happen when there's blight. Uh, with that, 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.960 there's a fungus. If there's um just anything that can 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:04.120 kill a crop. You want something that is diverse on 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.440 your hands so you can try something new. Right. Remember 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.440 in the famine episode where we talked about how one 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.640 of the reasons that Ireland suffered so tremendously was because 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.320 the potatoes they had were all basically the same throughout 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.160 the whole country. It was the same variety of potatoes, right, 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.120 So when that potato blight came, it was it was 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.760 a pathogen that all of the potatoes in Ireland were 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:32.080 susceptible to, where if they had had multiple varieties of potatoes, 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.560 sure a lot of the potato varieties would have been 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.080 wiped out, but there would have been some that survived 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.320 to right, Yeah, you know whose fault that was? Who's 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.720 the English? Well, they definitely didn't make anything easier on 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.400 them if I remember correctly. No, of course, but I'm 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.280 just spoken fun. But But the the idea that there 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.280 are just tons and tons of different varieties out there, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.840 there certainly are. But if you take another order of 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.520 magnitude step back and look at the global food system, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.560 there's really like thirty crops that make up basically all 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.680 of the food supply, right, and that's not too bad. 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.480 Thirties fine, we could survive on just one. Really, the 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.280 problem is if you go the opposite direction and zoom 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:19.079 in a little further, those crops are fairly homogenized these days. 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:24.400 And it's thanks to our buddy Norman Borlog. So he 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.839 fathered the green Revolution in large part, which was there 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.840 were a lot of predictions that the world's carrying capacity 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.200 was going to be reached by the nineteen sixties and 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.559 that a billion people were going to starve to death. 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.000 And that was because the agriculture that we had at 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.520 the time was capable of producing only so much crop yield. 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.240 So Norman Borlog took it upon himself to say, I'm 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.559 gonna save the world. And he came up with these 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.880 new techniques and new varieties of crops and said, here this, 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.280 this variety is going to get you way better yields. 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.480 It can survive flooding, it can survive drought, old plant. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:05.000 This and his his varieties that he bred were so successful. 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.320 Number one, he won the Nobel Prize and it's widely 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.559 credited for saving possibly a billion lives with his work. 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:18.160 But secondly, it was so successful that it became basically 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.480 the only varieties of those crops that were planted. And 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.040 in the nineteen seventies here in the United States, we 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:30.000 came just running smack dab into what a problem that 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.920 can be when this corn blight hit. Yeah, there was 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.600 a big fungus in the seventies and Uh, I didn't 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.440 say what I wanted to say, and it cut the 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:44.480 corn yields in the United States in half. And luckily, UH, 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.720 we did have some more varieties at our disposal. We 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.840 had a relative of it was a wild corn was 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:56.960 just crazy paint and it was it was fungus for assistance. 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.240 So in that case we were able to uh save 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.120 the day UM, which is kind of the whole point 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.040 of crop diversity and seed banks is to have something 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.120 on hand in case the worst case scenario happens, so 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.040 all your your potatoes aren't in one basket, or all 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.800 your corn isn't in one basket. So literally with that 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.240 corn blake too, we learned the hard way. UM. Something 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.240 like one quarter to one half of the corn yields 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.320 in the United States were lost UM during the seventies, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.720 and it was because something like I think of the 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:37.760 corn being grown in the US was identical in this way, Um, 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.520 that the corn blake could could manipulate and kill. So 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.240 we said, oh, well, we need to diversify a little more. 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:45.880 It was a hard lesson learned, but it was a 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.600 lesson learned. And since then this idea, like you said, 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.640 of of crop diversities become more and more important, and 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.200 people have said, well, we'll start banking seeds so we 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:59.080 can protect the genetic line and protect varieties from dying 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.680 out in the meantime. Yeah, and so that's um, you know, 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.000 diversity is a big deal. Climate change as another reason 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.160 we bank seeds because we're not too certain what's going 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.600 to happen in the future with the weather. Are actually 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:16.119 not with the weather with climate because it's two different things. Uh. 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:21.640 Nice natural disasters, um, like a tsunami or really kind 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.400 of any kind of natural disaster could cause great harm 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:30.040 to crop yield or disease, Yeah, which you would think 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:35.280 would be considered a natural disaster too. Well, now it's disease. Well, sure, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.920 you gotta you gotta delineate here, you know, uh, man 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.120 made disaster. And the point uh, the example deb uses 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.680 here is um war, which yeah, you really think about war, 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:48.840 but there have been uh. And as you'll see even 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.360 with seed banks during times of war, especially in the 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:53.960 Middle East, a lot of the seed banks in the 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.360 Middle Ease have been looted and rated during war. So 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.520 that sort of compounds the problem well. Plus also one 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:05.920 of the other things that war does is um uproots populations. Right, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.040 you have to move because there's a war going on 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.360 in your town and you can't live there anymore. So 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.680 if you're a farmer, UM, you may never go back 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:16.760 to farming anymore. And you may be one of the 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:21.119 few indigenous people who were farming a specific variety of 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.320 something and now that variety is lost forever because you 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.600 moved and stopped farming. Yeah, and there's there's that can 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.000 happen in more mundane pedestrian ways to where say a 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.120 family that's farming an indigenous variety of crop UM just 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:39.360 moves to the city for better work or something like that. Uh. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.280 And then the final way that she lists is UM 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.040 that we might want us to seed bank is for 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:48.479 research in the future. Plant based medicine has always been 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.880 around UM. One and every six wild plants is used 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.639 for medicine, and we don't know, I mean, we we 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.639 know so very little still about the uses of plants 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:59.879 for medicine, So we don't want to wipe out some 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.920 thing that could be the cure for cancer one day, 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.280 you know, right, And that that's kind of like the 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.119 cornerstone of the idea of seed banks these days is 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.840 that we need to take the seeds from every plant 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.040 we can get our hands on today, every variety we 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.520 can get our hands on, and just store just basically 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.960 put them in suspended animation and the under the idea 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.560 that eventually, because of climate change or because of war, 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.680 or because we may figure something out in the future 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:35.040 and need those plants or need access to their genetic information. 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.159 And so if we have the the seeds stored away 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:43.399 in suspended animation dormant um, then we will say thank 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:46.919 you people a hundred years earlier for being so smart 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.560 as to create seed banks. That's right, thousands of years 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.639 earlier in fact, maybe maybe, But there's problems with seed banks, 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.640 as we'll talk about. You want to take a break, yeah, 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:31.679 let's do that, and we'll get to that alright. So 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.720 as far as what kind of seeds are chosen, it depends. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:37.800 I mean they were there were more than four hundred 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.200 or right around fourteen hundred seed banks in the world, 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:47.160 So I know, uh smar Bald smar Bald, small Bard, 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.640 small Bard. I really think you can say it either way. 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.320 I know, I keep wanting to say key like it 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:53.680 just sounds like a dude from there. Oh it does. 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.920 Who's into like Viking metal? Yeah, he gets all the coverage. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.240 Ball Bard got so wasted. There are lost all of 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.880 the seeds. Uh. There are about four seed banks though, 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.719 all over the place, and it depends on which one 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:10.440 you're talking about, really is to what kind of seeds 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.879 they're gonna preserve. Um. Smaller seed banks are probably going 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:19.080 to concentrate more on more local indigenous varieties. Uh. It 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.320 seems like in all cases any kind of the endangered 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.840 plant is probably looked after. Um first, Yeah, they tend 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.560 to take priority from what I understand, But there's a 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.760 great group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and their 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:38.400 whole jam is to concentrate on priority crops that are 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.080 that benefit everyone around the world the most. So those 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:46.200 are the people that runs Vollbard, And from what I understand, 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.680 they've kind of come in and said we we are, 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.679 we're going to be setting the standards for seed preservation 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.800 in the world. Now someone had to. Yeah, and there's 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.320 a guy that was inter jewed in the guardian Um. 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:03.520 He was one of the founders of this trust and 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:05.960 one of the I think he was the first director 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.960 of this wall Bard Global Seed Vault. The names Carrie 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:13.520 Fowlers from Tennessee. And he said, we didn't create this 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.560 seed bank to you know, prevent because we saw this 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:21.680 catastrophe coming with like climate change or whatever. The doomsday vault, 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.200 you know, right right it was. And and but again 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.320 I think that the media kind of last front of that. 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.360 He was saying the original intent with why they founded 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.159 this vall Bard Seed Vault was because the current seed 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.040 banks were doing such a terrible job keeping their their 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:42.240 seeds like alive or intact, that we were losing varieties 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.879 every day from ones that were stored at seed banks. 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.359 They were just going away. So he was basically like, 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:50.960 let me to it. He was like at the at 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:55.200 the I T guy, Yeah, well, it's kind of scary though, 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:57.720 Like when when he talked or when he was interviewed, 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.280 he was um to say, like, you know, new clear 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.800 war was in our biggest threat. It's underfunding and sloppy 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:08.720 work right or yeah, budget cuts, UM, malfunctions and the 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:13.280 equipment like badly maintained equipment. Uh, there's a lot of 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:15.040 stuff they can go wrong with the seed bank and 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.520 so so the point behind the small Guard seed Bank 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:23.880 is to serve as a backup repository to where yeah, 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.240 you keep your seeds there in your country and will 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:29.760 show you the best ways to manage your seed bank, 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.880 but also put a duplicate set with us and we're 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:34.919 just gonna keep it stored. We're not going to do 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.080 the science or anything like that. The whole point of 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:39.639 the small Guard seed Bank is to just keep it 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.720 stored under the right conditions so that when you need 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.439 it it will be here for you. That is correct. 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:50.480 So this Global Diversity Crop Trust, they work under a treaty. 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:54.480 It's called the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for 0:22:54.600 --> 0:23:01.200 Food and Agriculture or PA and UH it was ratified 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.280 by in two thousand four by forty different governments. UM. 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.040 Imagine since then they're probably some more on board, right, 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.040 I believe, so, although I wonder how much UM that 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.520 has kind of fallen to the wayside since Crop Trust 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.840 created this small Bard seed vault. They seem to have 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:21.280 kind of taken over from what I understand. Well, I 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:23.919 mean I think this treaty is just it's part of 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:28.680 good practices too, you know. Yeah, So what they do 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:32.720 is they do permit access for these seeds for research 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:34.960 and stuff, not from small Bard because like we said, 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:39.080 that's that's the bank that doesn't allow withdrawal, um. But 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:42.280 it has to be a benefit to everyone. Basically, you 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.600 can't just go willy nilly on a whim and pull 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:50.440 seeds out and start experimenting. Right, Well, that's the that's 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.959 that's for the other seed banks. That's kind of like 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:56.800 the process where those are the ones that they're they're 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.679 keeping so that somebody can come and like grow some 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:01.840 stuff off and check out the genetic material of the 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:04.200 plants or whatever. With small Bard, it's like you put 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:07.840