audibleecoscience

Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food

Media Source: TED Conferences
Program Name: TED
Show Name: Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food
Broadcast Year: 2009
Original Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/cary_fowler_one_seed_at_a_time_protecting_the_future_of_food.html

This was a TED talk given by Cary Fowler who is an agriculturalist. Fowler’s talk was about how climate change is going to reduce the diversity of crops and how that could be deadly to humans. He started with an astonishing fact that in the United States in the 1800’s there were 7,100 named varieties of apples and how today 6,800 are extinct. He then goes on to explain why crop diversity is needed. We need the many variety of seeds in order to be prepared for future growing seasons with different weather patterns. He explained how in South Asia and Sub-Sahara Africa how the temperature is going to rise and reduce yields thus causing mass starvation. He believes the key is to get climate ready crops into the fields now. We can do this by looking through seeds and finding the right seeds. Fowler made a very good point that seed banks are the only things that countries from all over the world have come together on. This shows the importance and severity of climate change. Fowler ended his talk with the statement, “By preserving wheat, rice, potatoes, and other crops we may quite simply end up saving ourselves.”