Svalbard – How the Elite Plan to Survive an Engineered Extinction Event
Nathaniel Mauka
WakingTimes.com
November 28, 2016
The Svalbard seed bank, set like a concrete monolith in the minus 4 degree Celsius permafrost of a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole, shouldn’t determine the fate of our agricultural future. Though the remote bank has collected 860,000 seed samples from around the world, with the latest withdrawal being made from war-torn Syria, what are the true intentions behind a bank said to, “preserve as much of the world’s crop diversity as possible,” while seed supplies around the world are being monopolized by a few corporations, and indigenous, thousand-year old seeds are being wiped out by genetically modified versions?
Svalbard’s investors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto, Syngenta, and other biotech interests tout this ‘seed saving’ monolith while simultaneously ravaging seed diversity, along with state laws throughout the US, and elsewhere on the globe, that prevent small farmers and gardeners from saving and sharing seed.
Endangered Seed
Currently, there are at least 100,000 global plant varieties endangered in the world. Extreme weather events, over-exploitation of ecosystems, habitat loss, and the cross-pollination of seed by genetically altered, terminator seed, contribute to the problem.
You could look at seed saving and seed sharing like open-source education. If you really want to democratize the flow of knowledge and information, you make it free, and offer it online, as many Universities now do. No one institution holds the entire knowledge on mathematics, art, literature, spirituality, or any other subject. Just as in nature, we require diversity of thought so that we don’t become automotons repeating a single, well-crafted agenda created by a handful of people.
Many farmers groups, non-profits, and governments are attempting to conserve seed diversity in their own communities, with more than 1,000 known seed banks, collaboratives, and exchanges around the world, but this time-honored tradition of seed saving is butting up against some very serious obstacles, which I’ll name in a moment.
Moreover, while the Svalbard seed bank seems to pass an initial sniff test, a little deeper digging can reveal other questions that many should be asking about such an expensive adventure in ‘protecting agriculture.’
The Rest…HERE
