by Tom Standage
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, on the Norwegian island of Spits-bergen, is the world’s largest and safest seed-storage facility. The seeds it contains are stored inside gray four-ply envelopes made of polyethylene and aluminum, packed into sealed boxes, and stacked on shelves in the three vaults. Each envelope holds an average of five hundred seeds, and the total capacity of the vault is 4.5 million envelopes, or more than two billion seeds. This is far larger than any existing seed bank: When the first vault is only half full, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will be the world’s largest collection of seeds.
The vault’s careful design and positioning should also make it the world’s safest collection. There are about 1,400 seed banks worldwide, but many of them are vulnerable to wars, natural disasters, or a lack of secure funding. In 2001, Taliban fighters wiped out a seed bank in Afghanistan that contained ancient types of walnut, almond, peach, and other fruits. In 2003, during the American invasion of Iraq, a seed bank in Abu Ghraib was destroyed by looters, and rare varieties of wheat, lentils, and chickpeas were lost. Much of the collection at the national seed bank in the Philippines was lost in 2006 when it was swamped by muddy water during a typhoon. A Latin American seed bank almost lost its collection of potatoes when its refrigerators broke down. Malawi’s seed bank is a freezer in the corner of a wooden shack. Physical dangers aside, the funding for many seed banks is also precarious. Kenya’s entire seed bank was almost lost because its administrators could not afford to pay the electricity bill. The Svalbard facility, which will act as a backup for all of these national seed banks, has been designed to minimize both man-made and natural risks, and its running costs will be paid by the Norwegian government, which also paid for its construction.
As well as being built in one of the most remote places on earth, the Svalbard vault is tightly secured with steel doors and coded locks, is monitored from Sweden by video-link, and is protected by motion detectors set up around the site. (Polar bears provide a further deterrent to intruders: People in the region are advised to carry a high-powered rifle whenever they venture outside a settlement.) The structure is built into a mountain that is geologically stable and has a low level of background radiation. And it is 130 meters (426 feet) above sea level, so it will remain untouched even under the most pessimistic scenarios for rising sea levels in the future. The vault’s refrigeration system, powered by locally mined coal, will keep the seeds at-18 degrees Celsius (-0.3 degrees Fahrenheit). Even if the refrigeration system fails, the vault’s position, deep below the permafrost, ensures that the inside temperature will never exceed-3.5 degrees Celsius (25.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which is cold enough to protect most of the seeds for many years. In normal operation, a few seeds from each sample will be withdrawn from time to time and planted, so that fresh seeds can be harvested. (Some seeds, such as lettuce seeds, can only be stored for about fifty years.) In this way, the thousands of varieties of seeds can be perpetuated almost indefinitely.
The purpose of the Svalbard vault is to provide an insurance policy against both a short-term threat and a long-term one. The short-term threat—the disruption of global agriculture by climate change—seems likely to be the next way in which food will influence the course of human progress. In many countries, climate change could mean that the coolest years in the late twenty-first century will be warmer than the hottest years of the twentieth century. The conditions in which today’s common crop varieties were developed will no longer apply. William Cline, an expert on the economic impact of global warming at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C., predicts that climate change will reduce agricultural output by 10 to 25 percent by 2080 in developing countries unless action is taken. In some cases the impact is far more dramatic: India’s food output could fall by 30 to 40 percent. Agricultural output in some developed countries, by contrast, which typically have lower average temperatures, may increase slightly as temperatures rise. The worst-case scenario is that there could be wars over food, as global shifts in agricultural production lead to widespread droughts and food shortages and provoke conflict over access to agricultural land and water supplies.
The more optimistic scenario is that agriculture can adapt to changes in the climate, which are inevitable to some degree even if mankind manages to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases dramatically during the course of the twenty-first century. As formerly rich agricultural land becomes too arid for farming and previously cold, damp areas become more suitable for agriculture, seeds with new characteristics will be needed. And that is where the Svalbard seed bank comes in. The spread of high-yield seed varieties, in the wake of the green revolution, means that many traditional crop varieties are no longer being planted, and are being lost. Of the 7,100 types of apple that were being grown in America in the nineteenth century, for example, 6,800 are now extinct. Globally, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that around 75 percent of crop varieties were lost during the twentieth century, and further varieties are being lost at the rate of one a day. These traditional varieties very often produce lower yields than modern varieties, but collectively they represent a valuable genetic resource that must be preserved for use in the future.
Consider the case of a variety of wheat known as PI 178383. It was dismissed as “a hopelessly useless wheat” by Jack Harlan, an American botanist, when he collected a sample of it in Turkey in 1948. It did badly in cold winters, had a long, weak stalk that made it fall over easily, and was susceptible to a disease called leaf rust. But in 1963, when plant breeders were looking for a way to make American wheat resistant to another disease, called stripe rust, the supposedly useless Turkish wheat turned out to be invaluable. Tests showed that it was immune to four kinds of stripe rust and forty-seven other wheat diseases. It was crossbred with local varieties, and today nearly all the wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest is descended from it. Harlan’s seed collecting trips, in which he traveled simply, often on a donkey, had gathered priceless gene tic material. There is, in short, no way to tell which varieties will turn out to be useful in the future for their drought tolerance, immunity to disease, or pest resistance. So the logical thing to do is to conserve as many seeds as possible as securely as possible—which is what the Svalbard facility is designed to do.
It also provides insurance against a longer-term threat. Someday a nuclear war, an asteroid striking the earth, or some other global calamity might make it necessary to rebuild human civilization from scratch, starting with its deepest foundation: agriculture. Some of the seeds being stored at Svalbard are capable of surviving for millennia, even if its refrigeration systems fail. Wheat seeds can last 1,700 years, barley seeds for 2,000 years, and sorghum seeds for 20,000 years. Perhaps, hundreds of years from now, an intrepid band of explorers will head to Svalbard to retrieve the crucial ingredients needed to restart the process that first began in the Neolithic period, some 10,000 years ago.
Despite the Svalbard seed bank’s futuristic design and high-tech features, there is an echo of the Neolithic in its purpose: to store seeds safely. It was the ability to store seeds as an insurance policy against future food shortages that first led people to take a particular interest in cereal crops. This started them down the path to domestication, farming, and all the other consequences that have been described in this book. From the dawn of agriculture to the green revolution, food has been an essential ingredient in human history. And whether the seeds stored at Svalbard prove to be a useful gene tic resource in the short term, or the seeds that enable mankind to get back on its feet after a catastrophe, food is certain to be a vital ingredient of humanity’s future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As books about food go, this is an unusual one because it says very little about the taste of food or the joy of eating. Given my focus on the “nonfood” uses of food, the reader might easily conclude that I am only concerned with food’s anthropological or geopolitical significance, and that I am not terribly interested in cooking or eating. Nothing could be
further from the truth; and appropriately enough many of the people who helped me while I was writing this book did so over a meal. Toby Mundy of Atlantic Books crystallized my thoughts and proposed the title over lunch in Soho. George Gibson of Walker & Company embraced the idea over afternoon tea. I had constructive discussions with James Crabtree over sushi, Andreas Kluth over lunch at Zuni in San Francisco, Sarah Murray over coffee and cakes, and Paul Abra-hams over lunch at the Garrick Club. Oliver Morton and Nancy Hynes helped me shape my ideas over several home-cooked meals.
Vital roles were played by Katinka Matson, my agent, who helped me devise the idea for this book, and Jackie Johnson, my editor, who fine-tuned the recipe. Expert advice was provided by Michael Pollan, Tim Harford, Adrian Williams, Matt Ridley, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, and Marion Nestle. I would also like to express my gratitude to the many other people who helped things along during the writing process, including Tamzin Booth, Edward McBride, John Parker, Ann Wroe, Edward Carr, and Geoffrey Carr at the Economist; Fitzroy Somerset; Endymion Wilkinson; Tom Moultrie and Kathryn Stinson; Tim Coulter and Maureen Stapleton (thank you for the corn and peanut soup); Zoe and Patrick Ayling; Anneliese St-Amour; Cristiana Marti (a magician with deep-fried zucchini flowers); Kate Farquhar; Nick Powell; Chester Jenkins; Stephan Somogyi; Lee McKee; and Virginia Benz and Joe Anderer, with whom I have enjoyed many memorable meals over the years.
Last but certainly not least I would like to thank my children, Ella and Miles, and my wife, Kirstin, who was the first to encourage me to take on the topic of food—and to whom I hereby vow never to mention turnips or the Norfolk four-course rotation ever again.
NOTES
PART I
The account of the origins and domestication of maize follows Fussell, The Story of Corn; Warman, Corn and Capitalism; and Doebley, “The Genetics of Maize Evolution.” The discussion of the domestication of rice and wheat, and of domestication more widely, follows Diamond, “Evolution, Consequences and Future of Plant and Animal Domestication”; Cowan and Watson, The Origins of Agriculture; and Needham and Bray, Science and Civilisation in China. For food-related creation myths, see Gray, The Mythology of All Races, and Visser, Much Depends on Dinner. The impact of farming on human health is discussed in Cohen, Health and the Rise of Civilization, and Manning, Against the Grain. The nature and impact of the spread of agriculture in Europe is discussed in Pinhasi, Fort, and Am-merman, “Tracing the Origin and Spread of Agriculture in Europe,” and Dupanloup, Bertorelle, Chikhi, and Barbujani, “Estimating the Impact of Prehistoric Admixture on the Genome of Europeans.”
PART II
The social structure of hunter-gatherer bands is discussed in Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, and Lee, The !Kung San. The transition from egalitarian hunter-gatherers to settled and socially stratified city-dwellers is discussed in Bellwood, First Farmers; Bender, “Gatherer-Hunter to Farmer: A Social Perspective”; Gilman, “The Development of Social Stratification in Bronze Age Europe”; Wenke, Patterns in Prehistory; Hayden, Archaeology; and Johnson and Earle, The Evolution of Human Societies. The account of Inca fertility rituals follows Bauer, “Legitimization of the State in Inca Myth and Ritual.” A masterful comparative account of the emergence and structure of the earliest civilizations is provided by Trigger, UnderstandingEarly Civilizations.
PART III
For spice-related myths, see Dalby, Dangerous Tastes. The origins and history of the spice trade are discussed by Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z; Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise; Keay, The Spice Route; Turner, Spice; and Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire. For the relationship between spices and trade, see Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History. For the roles of spices in spreading and supposedly warding off the Black Death, see Ziegler, The Black Death; Deaux, The Black Death, 1347; and Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West. The fall of Constantinople is discussed in Crowley, Constantinople. Voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama are described in Fernández-Armesto, Columbus; Subrahmanyam, The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama; Keay, The Spice Route; Turner, Spice; and Boorstin, The Discoverers. The impact of Vasco da Gama (and Zheng He) on Eu ro pe an spice prices is discussed in O’Rourke and Williamson, “Did Vasco da Gama Matter for Europe an Markets?” The structure of Indian Ocean trade is described in Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean. The origins of Europe an empires are discussed in Scammell, The World Encompassed. The local-food debate is examined in Murray, Moveable Feasts, and by innumerable bloggers online.
PART IV
The story of King Charles’s pineapple follows Beauman, The Pineapple. European nations’ competition in economic botany, and the origins of botanical gardens, are discussed in Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion, and Drayton, Nature’s Government. The transfer of maize and potatoes to the Old World are discussed in Ho, “The Introduction of American Food Plants into China”; Langer, “Eu rope’s Initial Population Explosion”; and Langer, “American Foods and Eu rope’s Population Growth 1750–1850.” The account of transfer of sugar to the New World, and the proto-industrial nature of sugar production, follows Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations; Mintz, Sweetness and Power; Hobhouse, Seeds of Change; Daniels and Daniels, “The Origin of the Sugarcane Roller Mill”; Higman, “The Sugar Revolution”; and Fogel, Without Consent or Contract. The history and impact of the potato are discussed in Salaman, The History and Social Influence of the Potato; Reader, Propitious Esculent; and McNeill, “How the Potato Changed the World’s History.” The discussion of the role of new foodstuffs and agricultural techniques in triggering the Industrial Revolution draws upon Malanima, “Energy Crisis and Growth 1650–1850”; Thomas, The Industrial Revolution and the Atlantic Economy; Pomeranz, The Great Divergence; Thomas, “Escaping from Constraints: The Industrial Revolution in a Malthusian Context”; Steinberg, “An Ecological Perspective on the Origins of Industrialization”; Wrigley, Poverty, Progress and Population; Wrigley, Continuity, Chance and Change; Jones, “Agricultural Origins of Industry”; and Jones, “Environment, Agriculture, and Industrialization in Europe.” The account of the potato famine follows Reader, Propitious Esculent, and Hobhouse, Seeds of Change.
PART V
Military logistics in the ancient world are discussed by Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army; Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War; Clausen, “The Scorched Earth Policy, Ancient and Modern”; and Erdkamp, Hunger and the Sword. The role of logistics in the Revolutionary War is discussed by Tokar, “Logistics and the British Defeat in the Revolutionary War,” and Bowler, Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America. For a broad overview of the evolution of military logistics, see van Creveld, Supplying War, and Lynn, Feeding Mars. The account of Napoleon’s rise and fall follows Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon; Nafziger, Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia; Asprey, The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte; Schom, Napoleon Bonaparte; and Riehn, 1812: Napoleon’s Russian Campaign. The role of logistics in the Civil War is discussed in Moore, “Mobility and Strategy in the Civil War.” The account of the development of canned food follows Shephard, Pickled, Potted and Canned. The account of the Soviet famine of 1932–33 follows Ellman, “The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931– 1934”; Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited”; and Dalrymple, “The Soviet Famine of 1932–1934.” The great Chinese famine is discussed in Smil, “China’s Great Famine: 40 Years Later,” and Becker, Hungry Ghosts. The role of food shortages in the collapse of the Soviet Union is described in Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire. For an account of the sugar boycott see Wroe, “Sick with Excess of Sweetness.”
PART VI
The account of the development of the Haber-Bosch process follows Smil, Enriching the Earth; Erisman, Sutton, Galloway, Klimont, and Winiwarter, “How a Century of Ammonia Synthesis Changed the World”; and Smil, “Nitrogen and Food Production: Proteins for Human Diets.” The green revolution
and its impact are discussed in Evans, Feeding the Ten Billion; Easterbrook, “Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity”; Evenson and Gollin, “Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000”; Webb, “More Food, But Not Yet Enough”; and Stuertz, “Green Giant.” The relationship between agricultural productivity and economic development is discussed in Gulati, Fan, and Dalafi, “The Dragon and the Elephant: Agricultural and Rural Reforms in China and India”; Timmer, “Agriculture and Pro-Poor Growth: An Asian Perspective”; Delgado, Hopkins, and Kelly, “Agricultural Growth Linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa”; Fan, Hazell, and Thorat, “Government Spending, Growth, and Poverty: An Analysis of Interlinkages in Rural India”; Gollin, Parente, and Rogerson, “The Food Problem and the Evolution of International Income Levels”; Gollin, Parente, and Rogerson, “The Role of Agriculture in Development”; and Doepke, “Growth Takeoffs.” Demographic transition is discussed in Doepke, “Accounting for Fertility Decline During the Transition to Growth.” The relationship between nitrogen inputs and yields, and the scope for a switch to less chemical-intensive farming, is discussed in Smil, Enriching the Earth.