“Once seeds are secured in gene banks, it is a never-ending — and expensive— job to keep them viable,” writes Virginia Gewin at Yale Environment 360. Gewin, who also has reported for FERN, says that, “re-building the ICARDA gene bank [evacuated during the war in Syria] will cost $2 million, with an additional $500,000 needed annually for the next few years to regenerate the seed.” Most crop seeds have to be planted to maintain their genetic integrity, with even frozen seeds degrading over time. But though they hold some of the world’s most vital material, seed banks are frequently the victims of war, natural disasters, and now climate change.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust, an organization created in 2004 to ensure the long-term conservation of crop diversity, has so far collected more than $300 million from 14 nations, as well as other funders, writes Gewin. That’s double the amount raised over the last two years, but still only a fraction of the $850 million needed to protect the banks’ 1.5 million seed populations, including17 major world crops.
“Regenerating seeds [to keep them viable] is the biggest cost to gene banks — and it’s often the first activity that gets cut,” says Luigi Guarino, the trust’s director of science and programs.
The trust grew out of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, adopted by the United Nations in 2001. The treaty governs the transfer of 64 major crops, including wheat, rice and maize, in the hopes of making it easier for countries to exchange genetic plant material. Historically, poorer countries with rich agricultural diversity have been loath to give up their seeds to an international bank, lest a researcher take the seeds home and file for a patent. Norway, Germany and the U.S. have given the most to the endowment, but the U.S. has yet to ratify the treaty, which additionally established a fund to support farmers trying to preserve seed.
The treaty also set up a benefit-sharing fund, “requiring companies and countries using banked seeds to contribute money— if they both commercialize the seeds and restrict research access to them,” Gewin writes. “Those monies will support farmers’ efforts to conserve biodiversity in the field.” But at $22 million (mostly from voluntary national donations), the fund has fallen severely short of its $116 million target.
“It’s a good treaty and well meaning: We have to make it function better,” explained Bradley Kurtz, senior manager of crop diversity and intellectual property at DuPont-Pioneer in Des Moines, Iowa, which has donated to the endowment fund. Saving seed is more important now than ever, as researchers race to find varieties that will tolerate increasingly hot and erratic temperatures, as well as drought.