The importance of bio-diversity.

A sweet, unpretentious, yet significant TEDtalk by Cary Fowler, the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, on the importance of preserving the bio-diversity of our seeds, and the role of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in this.

While often dubbed as "the Doomsday Vault", the half a million seeds stored at Svalbard guarantee a future rather than a doomsday: As the natural conditions under which we grow our food continuously change, our seeds also need to adapt. As these changes happen much faster now than before, also the seed adaption needs to go faster, and more targeted.

Unless if we store all varieties of seeds for every crop we grow, they will get lost. Check out my previous article about the ICRISAT genebank, to understand the true implication of this.

In this TEDtalk, Gary explains it in simple terms, but the message can't be misunderstood: "If agriculture does not adapt to climate change, neither will we". And crop diversity is the key to that adaptation.