Battleangel

The much talked about facility at Spitsbergen (in the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago) seems to be coming to life in the near future. The question is if it is good or bad. The article states that anti-globalisation campaigners have protested against other banks but I find it unlikely. At least if the banks in question were doing exactly what they claim to. NS of course doesn’t elaborate on why anyone would resist gene banking.
On the other hand, with USAID and Syngenta lurking in the shadows, who knows. For the average farmer here and now, getting ripped off by big agriculture, it matters little what this frozen fortress will hold. For them, it is far more important to get into community or living seed banks.

New Scientist - WITHIN a large concrete room, hewn out of a mountain on a freezing-cold island just 1000 kilometres from the North Pole, could lie the future of humanity.

The vault’s seed collection, made up of duplicates of those already held at other seed banks, will represent the products of some 10,000 years of plant breeding by the world’s farmers. Though most are no longer widely planted, the varieties contain vital genetic traits still regularly used in plant breeding.

See also:
Global Crop Diversity Trust (promoting the above project)
Afghanistan’s Seed Banks Destroyed (guess who was to blame)
Tomato Seed from Seed Bank Found to be Genetically Modified