SEEDS are being deposited in Arctic Doomsday vault to protect food crops from being damaged by war and natural disasters (Feb 29). The Svalbard global seed vaults (Artic doomsday vault) has now secured more than 740,000 seed samples since 2008. Wars destroyed seed banks in Iraq and Afghanistan and a seed bank was looted in Egypt. The seed is designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes and nuclear strikes.

Wild plants, ancient relatives of crops are of particular interest because of their resilience to harsh climatic conditions. The wild crops have traits such as drought tolerance and pest attack.

Another news item on regeneration of 30,000 old seeds buried in permafrost in Siberia have been grown in full flowering plants by scientists in Russian (Feb 22) which indicates the benefit of preserving seeds to face the catastrophe.

In order to cope up with the stressed climatic condition in the future, we will need totally different plant variety of wheat, rice, maize, potato etc. for sustenance.

More drought, floods, heat wave, snow storms and rising seas projected by the UN climate panel for coming decades will affect crops and could endanger UN goals of raising farm output to feed the rising population.

It is predicated that there will be a decline in wheat production by 30 per cent in Latin America, of maize in Africa by 30 per cent and of Asia by 30 per cent by 2030.

We should, therefore, start breeding crops to produce seeds which will confront the change in climate. We need seeds of crops to fit the change in climate.

PROF (Dr) M. JALALUDDIN Karachi