Scientists win the World Food Prize for their work on the Global Seed Vault May 11, 2024

Hawtin and Fowler participated in the creation of the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway.

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Scientists win the World Food Prize for their work on the Global Seed Vault

Scientists Geoffrey Hawtin and Cary Fowler, who on Thursday received the prestigious World Food Prize for “their work to preserve the world's seed heritage”, are on a mission.

Their vocation is to protect as many seeds as possible so that one day the world can benefit from their genetic characteristics. Their work is all in the name of protecting global food security.

Hawtin and Fowler helped create a world seed reserve dug out of a glacier in Norway's Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic, where 1.25 million samples are now stored for cold preservation.

It was for this work that they were named the 2024 winners of the World Food Prize, awarded to people who have increased the quality, quantity, or availability of food around the world.

The goal is always to conserve as many agricultural seeds as possible, 75-year-old British-Canadian agronomist Hawtin told AFP.

“What has changed a bit since it opened in 2008 is the material that is stored,” he said.

After mainly collecting seeds from “domesticated” plants such as wheat and barley, the reserve is now receiving more wild species that are more or less related to cultivated plants.

The latter, for the most part, “have genes that are particularly interesting for climate change,” he said.

- Countless experiments

The domestication of plants is “the result of thousands of years and countless experiments”, said Fowler, 74, an American seed expert and US special envoy for global food security.

It would be “arrogant” to think that today's genetic engineering tools, even the most sophisticated ones, could reproduce these experiments, he added.

This would be “a more expensive way of obtaining the diversity we already have contained in the seeds of seed banks”.

Hawtin said that although gene editing has a big role to play, the “problem is what to edit”.

“There are tens of thousands, if not more, genes that, in one way or another, affect the plant's response just to climate change, which could be heat, which could be cold, which could be drought, which could be flood,” he said.

He said he doubted that even artificial intelligence could enable “the full level of understanding” needed for this approach.

However, he foresees the emergence of digital seed banks, in which more and more detailed information about the genetic characteristics of plants will be stored.

- Saved in Syria -

The two men began their careers in the 1970s.

At that time, the goal was not yet to adapt to climate change but to produce as much wheat, corn, and rice as possible.

“There was a famine in Ethiopia and India and, at the time, most of the concern was filling people's stomachs,” said Fowler.

To do this, experts at the time recommended focusing on the highest-yielding seeds and making massive use of fertilizers and pesticides.

Since then, they have understood the importance of developing more durable agricultural systems and expanding the variety of crops, said Fowler.

As a Special Envoy for Global Food Security, he promotes the use of traditional crops in Africa. Often neglected by research programs in favor of corn, wheat, and rice, they are potentially more nutritious and better adapted to the environment.

Hawtin began his career in the Middle East, meeting farmers and collecting vegetable seeds in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, and Jordan and then crossing them.

Not wanting to just throw them away, he started saving them.

- Seed banks “caught in the middle” -

Three decades later, the war in Syria forced the seed bank in Aleppo, where the agronomist had worked, to “evacuate” its samples as a matter of urgency.

Many of them went to the Svalbard seed bank.

Some, including vegetable seeds collected by Hawtin and his team, have already been removed from the reserve to join collections in Morocco and Lebanon.

“Two weeks ago, I was in Morocco and saw some of this material being planted in Moroccan fields and tested for drought resistance,” said Hawtin.

The fact that the global reserve has been depleted so quickly leaves scientists with a hint of bitterness.

“It's like a car insurance policy. You never want to be in a situation where you have to use it,” said Fowler.

“I'm sorry to say this, but I think there will be more conflict situations around the world and natural disasters with, unfortunately, seed banks being caught in the middle,” he added.

The $500,000 World Food Prize was created in 1986 by Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work on global agriculture.

It is awarded every year in Iowa, USA.

Juliette MICHEL

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