20100504 agchat ag education opinion

My usual news searches for Buildings & Grounds in the past week turned up two related items about agriculture — one unsettling, the other hopeful. First, in the frightening-and-depressing category, The New York Times carried an article about the underground seed vault established in the arctic by Norway, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, and the United States. The vault, which is built to withstand earthquakes and bomb blasts, is meant to preserve seeds of all kinds, from all over the world, so that agriculture — the foundation of civilization — may have a second chance in the event of worldwide catastrophe.