How ancient seeds from the Fertile Crescent could help save us from climate change
Some of the tens of thousands of seeds stored at a facility in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley may hold keys to helping the planet's food supply adapt to climate change. Many seeds were saved from Syria's war.
TERBOL, Lebanon — Inside a large freezer room at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, tens of thousands of seeds are stored at a constant temperature of minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit. After being threshed and cleaned, the seeds are placed inside small, sealed foil packets and stored on rows of heavy, sliding metal shelves.
Some of them may hold keys to helping the planet's food supply adapt to climate change.
The gene bank can hold as many as 120,000 varieties of plants. Many of the seeds come from crops as old as agriculture itself. They're sown by farmers in , where cultivation began some 11,000 years ago. Other seeds were deposited by researchers who've hiked
