Food...

The Doomsday Vault, a tunnel in the Arctic that will eventually be lined with concrete and fitted with blast-proof doors, may be the key to human survival post world disaster. The vault will be able to withstand global warming, terrorism, and nuclear war. To save our human race, we’re going to fill it with seeds.

The idea, according to Claire Hope Cummings’ new book Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds is that those seeds will be used to recreate agriculture as we used to know it after a global attack or after our world crumbles. And, the Doomsday Vault is something that’s more immediate than we may realize. As Cummings wrote in an excerpt from her book on Alternet.org, “the integrity of the seeds are threatened, in the wild and on our farms.” Technology, patents, corporations, and the overall “degradation of the environment” are all putting our seeds in peril.

Outside of biology 101, we tend to take seeds for granted, yet, wrote Cummings, “[s]eeds are essential to the regenerative capacity of the planet. We will need their natural resilience and adaptability even more as the temperature rises.” All together, seeds and the plants they produce are how the planet breathes, not to mention the food, cloth, and now fuel that they provide us.

As we move a world of seeds that’s more sci-fi than Mendel, biodiversity is decreasing, and we’re at a crossroads in life where, Cummings ominously forecasted: “Whoever controls the future of seeds controls the future of life on earth.” So, who do you want to control life? Industrial agriculture (Monsanto and other giant ag companies) or someone else…us, perhaps?

Read Cummings’ five reasons that industrial ag doesn’t cut it in the article: Artificial Foods and Corporate Crops: Can We Escape the 'Frankenstate'?

Photo of heirloom seed packets from Veggie Gardening Tips.