Whichever of the competing strategies for saving crop diversity is the right one – in seed banks or in the fields – the reality is that both approaches are starved of support. What has become clear to Haga is that the seed banks are in a terrible state. The material in storage is ageing dangerously fast – another few years and many of the samples will be too old to produce crops. Unless funds can be raised to plant the specimens out at research field stations and then store the next generation of seeds, the material will be worthless. Seed banks are also struggling to keep up with technology. In an age when anybody can take a cheek swab to check their DNA, painfully little is known about the genetics of the plants on which civilisation has depended for 10,000 years. The Crop Trust is funding programmes to create an online searchable database of global seed collections so plant breeders and scientists can seek out and then develop desirable traits for future varieties, but the work is painfully slow.
“Today, coming into a gene bank is a little bit like coming into a supermarket where you don’t have labels on cans,” said Haga.