During the pandemic, many turned to gardening as a refuge. According to a survey, while many did it because they were concerned about food access and food security, others also said it was mainly a way to feel less isolated and depressed, and as a way to grow food for the community. So many people […]
By Eoin Higgins Just over a decade after it first opened, the world’s “doomsday vault” of seeds is imperiled by climate change as the polar region where it’s located warms faster than any other area on the planet. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which opened in late February 2008, was built by the organization Crop […]
By Kelly Magyarics Growing up in a family of gardening enthusiasts, Tobin Shea recalls devouring the pages of seeds, flowers, fruits and vegetables every time his grandparents received a new issue of the Burpee seed catalog. “I was always fascinated with gardening and being able to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor,” said the bar […]
By Nancy Castaldo Wheat, maize, rice … repeat. Those three starchy plants provide about half of all the calories we consume. What’s more, of the 12,000 plant species that can be used for human food, only about 150 are cultivated. And that heavy reliance on a limited number of crops poses a serious risk when […]
In an another legal blow to Monsanto, India’s Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the Delhi High Court’s ruling that the seed giant cannot claim patents for Bollgard and Bollgard II, its genetically modified cotton seeds, in the country. Monsanto’s chief technology officer Robert Fraley, who just announced that he and other top executives […]
Once the work of public researchers, plant breeding is now dominated by a handful of massive corporations, but there are still a variety of nonprofit organizations working to preserve biodiversity and ensure access to heirloom, open-pollinated seeds for generations to come. Here is a roundup of our favorites, including a few that sell seeds in […]
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the Arctic Circle—also known as the “doomsday vault” safeguarding the world’s most diverse collection of seeds—now holds 1,059,646 unique crop varieties after receiving more than 70,000 samples on Monday. Depositors from 23 seed banks around the world braved sub-zero temperatures to deliver duplicate seeds of vital staples such as […]
A major seed deposit critical to ensuring global food security was made to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the Arctic Circle on Wednesday. Despite a backdrop of geopolitical volatility, nearly 50,000 samples of seeds from seed collections in Benin, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Netherlands, the U.S, Mexico, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus and the […]
Several U.S. state attorneys general will reportedly join the federal antitrust investigations of the pending multibillion dollar deals between DuPont and Dow Chemical Co and Bayer AG and Monsanto Co, respectively. An online petition to EU Commissioner for Competition: Margrethe Vestager, and Head of the antitrust Authority in the U.S. Department of Justice to block […]