The Fertile Crescent region is one of the best-documented agricultural areas in the world, known for its flourishing biodiversity in the distant past. Today, the vast area between Syria and Kuwait is a desert, where only the most drought-resistant plants survive the harsh conditions. As crop varieties dwindle across the globe, seeds from this area are critical to our food production future. The last decade has been a chaotic ride for an archive of these seeds, seemingly ripped from the plot of a James Bond movie.

In 1975, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas was established. This nonprofit research group painstakingly gathered thousands of years of knowledge about farming in the extended Fertile Crescent area. It is dedicated to research and development, but it also physically archives seeds from the driest areas in 50 countries in a bunker in Aleppo, Syria. As climate change alters how and where we can grow crops productively, this research and these seeds are vital.

According to CNN, the seed bank in Aleppo is “one of the most important in the world and includes more than 135,000 varieties of wheat, fava bean, lentil and chickpea crops, as well as the world’s most valuable barley collection.” This variety is important because, over the last 50 years, the range of crops we plant has drastically declined. 

As of 2015, “only about 30 crops provide 95 percent of human food-energy needs,” CNN reports. “Only 10 percent of the rice varieties that China used in the 1950s are still used today, for example. The [United States] has lost [more than] 90 percent of its fruit and vegetable varieties since the 1900s. This monoculture nature of agriculture leaves food supplies more susceptible to threats such as diseases and drought.”

The Doomsday Vault

We might need to dig into the vault and find a different mix of seeds if those 30 crops become less productive. Here is where the spy movie plot comes in. Syria had a terrible drought from 2006 to 2010, resulting in a low crop yield compounding the unease under the Bashar al-Assad administration. In 2011, the situation escalated in terrible ways — a civil war was beginning.

The ICARDA research center and seed vault was physically in the center of the escalating war in Aleppo. The very information and seed pods that could help turn the crop yields around were in danger of being caught in the crossfire. (In recent years, seed banks in Afghanistan and Iraq have been destroyed in conflict, and last-of-a-kind material has been lost forever). 

ICARDA’s archived seeds are so important to life on Earth that a world-saving mission was conducted. By 2014, 80 percent of the ICARDA seeds were sent to a remote location known as the “doomsday vault.”

Operated by the Norwegian government, a bunker is buried in the snow on an island well north of the Arctic Circle in Svalbard. Opened in 2008, the only visible indication of this structure is a concrete wedge sticking out of the permafrost with what looks like a muddled blue and green stained glass window at the top. You can almost picture a spy dressed in all white sneaking through the snow to find a way inside.

While this isn’t the only seed vault in the world — Croptrust.org notes that there are 1,700 across the globe — the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was strategically built to protect more than 1,200,000 seed samples. First, it is far away from human civilization to avoid war and tampering. 

Croptrust.org further describes vault conditions: “A temperature of 0 F (−18 C) is required for optimal storage of the seeds. Permafrost and thick rock ensure that the seed samples will remain frozen even without power. The seeds are sealed in custom-made three-ply foil packages, which are sealed inside boxes and stored on shelves inside the Seed Vault. The low temperature and moisture levels inside the Seed Vault ensure low metabolic activity, keeping the seeds viable for long periods of time.”

Returning to the Fertile Crescent

Unlike a spy movie, this isn’t where the story ends. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is not a one-way deposit system in which the evacuated seeds stay hidden for eternity. A partial function of seed vaults is to be able to replant and rebuild after crises. In some circumstances, seeds return to their point of origin. 

ICARDA in Syria effectively relocated to Lebanon to continue the work of sustaining agriculture in desert lands. In many past instances, this storyline has been different. The precious cargo doesn’t return from the distant safehouse. A void is left after the dust of conflict has settled. 

Along these lines, in a nonfood-related scenario, the British Museum is full of Egyptian artifacts. The roughly 3,000-year-old artifacts were plundered from Egypt in 1801. One major item was the Rosetta Stone, taken by Napoleon’s army in 1799 and given to the British as the French were defeated in Egypt. 

Once seen as a key to the understanding of Egyptian culture, Egypt has called for the return of the Rosetta Stone. However, the symbolic artifact continues to live in the British Museum, where it has no plans of returning it.

The Syrian seed plotline is different. Instead of hoarding the knowledge and agricultural Rosetta Stones of today, teams of scientists are working together to return the vital seeds to the Fertile Crescent, where they were cataloged to continue the work. 

Time writes: “One of the 200,000 varieties of rice within the [Svalbard] vault could have the trait needed to adapt rice to higher temperatures, for example, or to find resistance to a new pest or disease. This is particularly important with the challenges of climate change. ‘Not too many think about crop diversity as being so fundamentally important, but it is. It is almost as important as water and air,’” states Marie Haga, executive director of the Crop Trust.

Seed vaults need to be apolitical, isolated and well-funded. In a sense, humans are too volatile to hoard locally. Time provides background on the science of seed collecting from another conflict: “During the siege of Leningrad, about a dozen scientists barricaded themselves in the room containing the seeds in order to protect them from hungry citizens and the surrounding German army. As the siege dragged on, a number of them eventually died from starvation.” 

A scientist named Dmitri Ivanov is a hero in the seed-protecting community. He apparently died of starvation, surrounded by archived varieties of rice that he protected so Russia would have a chance of recultivating the critical seeds after the war. 

Today, the Svalbard vault contains boxes of seeds from the bitterest political enemies, separated from the drama and fighting. In this way, the seeds are like the spy hero in a movie who has had enough of the conflict and retreats to a hideout in the last act, secretly hoping there isn’t a need to reenter the conflict in a sequel.