Over the past century, we have seen massive loss of agricultural biodiversity, in terms of both species and varieties. The statistics on biodiversity loss in varietal strains are staggering. According to the book Fatal Harvest, from 1903 to 1983, we have lost 80.6 percent of tomato varieties, 92.8 percent of lettuce varieties, 90.8 and 96.1 percent of field and sweet corn respectively, and 86.2 percent of apple varieties. Of the 5,000+ identified potato varieties, a dismal 4 varieties account for the overwhelming majority of commercial production.

Though it is tempting to assume that this loss of agricultural biodiversity is unprecedented in human history, there exist no data to support this claim. Even in the Information Age it is a difficult task to measure and catalog the full extent of agricultural biodiversity. So while agricultural biodiversity may or may not be subject to cycles of loss and renewal, we are certainly entering an age where its value is increasing exponentially as a result of climate change, population growth, and wide spread ecological disruption and collapse.

The loss of biodiversity is not without economic justification. The industrial agricultural model requires a uniformity in agriculture that was previously absent from the small holder systems prevalent through most of human history. As our farms began to resemble factories more than they resembled ecosystems, it made sense to pare down biodiversity to the bare minimum, so that a uniform monoculture could be uniformly monotonous down to the very DNA of the produced crop. This trend has reached its twisted climax with the advent of genetically modified organisms. GMO, the name says it all: uniform, patented, privatized…well, modified.

Yet our tampering is not without consequence. As Jared Diamond notes in his seminal book Collapse,

…the entire natural world is made up of wild species providing us for free with services that can be very expensive, and in many cases impossible, to supply ourselves. Elimination of lots of lousy little species regularly causes big harmful consequences for humans, just as does randomly knocking our many of the lousy little rivets holding together an airplane.

Each time we remove a species from a system we force ourselves to assume its role. Yet here we are, removing entire complexes of species, many times driving them beyond the brink of extinction. As we attempt to assume the roles of distinct varieties of maize, an assortment of crop pollinating insects, impossibly diverse complexes of soil dwelling microorganisms, and a whole host of other species responsible for the provision of ecological services, we force ourselves to replace them with energy intensive inputs in the form of costly agrochemicals, until eventually the entire system is incapable of functioning, and it collapses.

This process is most tangible in the Third World, where energy subsidies to small farmers don’t exist as they do for the industrial scale producers of the First World. And so, as the stewards of the world’s agricultural biodiversity abandon their lands in the wake of a collapsing agroecoystem, the process of agricultural biodiversity loss is exacerbated, as seed goes unplanted, fields go untended, and the world inches closer to the edge.

The Norwegian “doomsday vault” bears witness to the very real prospect of collapse being contemplated by many serious scientists and policy-makers. According to the article, the vault will be carved into a frozen island not far from the North Pole. When complete, it is expected that the vault will hold some 2 million seeds, representing all of the known varieties of agricultural crops. The Northern latitudes will ensure a deep freeze of the genetic material, increasing the time for which the seed will remain viable.

Ok, good deal. But, if things do collapse, how the heck will the survivors know how to find it? And how will they get there?