In January 2008, seeds began arriving at the world's first global seed vault, buried deep inside a mountain on an Arctic island a-thousand kilometres north of the Norwegian coast. The vault was built to ensure the survival of the world's food supply and its agricultural history in the event of a global catastrophe. Louise Hidalgo has been speaking to the man whose idea it was, American agriculturalist Cary Fowler.

(Photo: journalists and cameramen outside the entrance of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault that was officially opened on 26th February 2008. Credit: Hakon Mosvold Larsen/AFP/Getty Images)