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Creators of seed ‘Doomsday Vault’ win $500,000 World Food Prize

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The two men behind the so-called “Doomsday vault” containing 1.25 million seed samples – seeds that could be used to rebuild much of the world’s food supply if a catastrophe strikes – are the winners of this year of the $500,000 World Food Prize.

Cary Fowler, the US special envoy for global food security, and Geoffrey Hawtin, founder and director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, won the award for their work to establish the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which preserves more than 6,000 plant species in a underground facility in the United States. Arctic Circle.

Fowler, a Tennessee native, said many thought creating the seed vault on Svalbard was a crazy idea. But since opening in 2008, we have managed to collect and preserve the diversity of all major crops, including 150,000 varieties of wheat and as many varieties of rice.

From 2018: Global warming is pushing Norway to strengthen its doomsday seed vault

Hawtin spent much of his early career – even risking his life – collecting, preserving and protecting varieties of chickpeas, broad beans and other legumes from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, according to the Des Moines-based World Food Prize Foundation. .

Maintaining the genetic diversity of crops is key to food security, Hawtin said, and many species are “as endangered as pandas and rhinos.”

The prize, established by Iowa native Norman Borlaug and doubled last year from $250,000, will be presented at the culmination of the World Food Prize conference Oct. 29-31 in Des Moines. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, World Food Prize Foundation Chairman Terry Branstad and others announced the prize Thursday in Washington DC

Here’s what you need to know about the prize and the winners.

What is the World Food Price?

Borlaug, who founded the World Food Prize organization in 1986, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his research that led to the creation of drought-resistant, high-yielding wheat varieties. He is seen as the ‘father of the Green Revolution’, which saved a billion people from hunger.

Borlaug created the prize, often called the Nobel Prize in Agriculture, to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to improving the quality and quantity of food around the world.

Former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who was the longest-serving governor in U.S. history before resigning to serve as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to China, became president of the World Food Prize Foundation in 2023.

Why is the World Food Prize Foundation honoring Fowler and Hawtin?

The two helped develop what is now called the Plant Treaty, adopted in 2001, which allowed plant genetic material to be moved worldwide, providing the basis for the Spitsbergen vault.

The vault is buried deep in a mountain under permafrost. The Norwegian government manages it together with the regional gene bank Nordic Genetic Resource Center, called NordGen, and the Global Crop Diversity Trust, also called the Crop Trust. Fowler was the Crop Trust’s first executive director.

What happens in the seed vault on Spitsbergen?

The vault stores duplicate samples of countries’ seed collections and provides backup for losses that may occur during natural disasters, war, fire and floods, as well as equipment failure. The permafrost ensures that the temperature remains minus 18 degrees Celsius.

With space for 4.5 million seed samples, the vault, which supports 1,700 gene banks worldwide, has been called “the ultimate insurance policy for the world’s food supply.”

“The seed vault supports the work of all these seed banks around the world,” says Hawtin, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2017 for his work in global agrobiodiversity and sustainable food programs.

“They’re not just collecting materials,” he said. “They distribute materials and make them available” to researchers and growers and “learn about them.”

“In a very real sense, the safe allows them to carry out their vitally important daily work with confidence,” he said.

Have the stored seeds already been tapped?

Syrian scientists, driven from the country by civil conflict in 2014, have already tapped the country’s stored seeds. Moving to Morocco and Lebanon, the scientists rebuilt the stock, including barley, lentils and chickpeas.

Hawtin said he was recently in Morocco where Svalbard seeds were being grown in the field.

“For example, it was tested for drought resistance,” he said. “In the coming years they will find their way into new varieties.

“In a very real sense, it’s contributing today… it’s not just future activity,” he said.

Fowler added: “It not only safeguards the collections of various seed banks around the world, but also, in a sense, puts an end to the extinction that is happening due to agricultural diversity.”

Is the Svalbard seed vault primarily a long-term insurance policy?

“People have wondered, how are we going to get there and get the seeds out when there’s a doomsday,” said Fowler, who added that his “somewhat light-hearted answer” was: “Don’t worry… we’ll come to You.”

“I think the doomsday name it has been given is largely inaccurate, but there is some truth to it,” Fowler said. “Yes, if there was a global or regional catastrophe, do I think the seed vault would be invaluable and useful? … Absolute.

“But it wasn’t really built with the expectation that an asteroid would hit Earth or something like that,” he said. “It was built to address the practical, everyday problems we encounter in seed banks around the world.”

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, environment and energy for the register. Reach her at [email protected] or 515-284-8457.

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