- In this room, scientists hold
one of the largest collections of seeds in the world.
A collection that may hold the key to our survival.
- The world is sick.
Farmers are losing the capacity to farm.
Climate change is an uncontrollable beast.
- The issue is that we do not know
what the challenges will be like in the future.
We don't know what kinds of viruses, or bacteria,
or fungi, or insects will be challenging our crops.
What we have in the seed bank is a back up of nature.
- Whether flooding, higher temperatures, drought,
or famine, climate instability is threatening farmers
and our food supply.
But this seed bank might hold the answer
to future-proofing global crop production.
They're creating a backlog of the planet's seeds,
while breeding new versions
that can survive almost any conditions.
- Each one of those seeds could be the solution.
The genebank of ICARDA
conserves the history of this planet.
If that history has a future,
it's the genebank that will guarantee it.
- ICARDA is the International Center
for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas.
- It's a 4,000 potential variety of tomorrow, right?
- The drylands are really the place where
we're gonna play the game for the future.
- The drylands contain nearly
one-third of all humans on Earth.
And, as the name implies,
its geography is severely vulnerable to climate change.
- What we are doing is really conserving, monitoring,
documenting, and also distributing the seed.
- We have around 140,000 samples.
More than 75% of our collection
is made up of what we call 'the local varieties,'
or land races, and the wild species.
- ICARDA's 3,000 scientists work with breeders
and farmers in over 50 countries to provide them
with seeds that they can use to breed
what they call 'varieties,'
that are resilient to drought, pests, or disease.
- The main focus of ICARDA is global food security.
If we're able to farm places that are already
suffering today, and keep them producing foods
for the generation to come, then we will have a future.
- But in 2011, this future was put into jeopardy.
ICARDA was originally established in Syria
as a way to preserve and protect
the region's major food crops.
An effort put under threat when a civil war erupted there,
spawned in part by the same conditions
ICARDA was founded to help solve.
- 'Caught in the crossfire of Syria's civil war,
Aleppo is being destroyed.'
- As the fighting drew closer
to ICARDA's headquarters, scientists had to flee,
leaving everything behind.
Fortunately, ICARDA had been sending
backups of their collection
to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
For the first time in history,
the vault allowed for an emergency withdrawal
to help the seed bank get back to work.
With new facilities now established
in Lebanon and Morocco,
the focus could shift back to breeding.
- To be in the field is like being in the office.
The field is a place where everything happens.
Nature is at its best.
That is my office.
My office is bloody brilliant.
- The genebank meticulously catalogs
every seed they receive, and utilizes algorithms
to quickly find favorable traits that help
breeders like Filippo solve specific geographic obstacles.
- So let's imagine that we have
a drought-tolerant material from the genebank—
we combine with a very high-yielding variety—
we try to come at the end with a new variety
that is much better yielding and drought-tolerant.
And then from then on, it becomes my job
to change what is potential into reality.
ICARDA is a true believer in participatory work—
meaning working with farmers.
We try to invite farmers to look at
our semi-finished material to decide together
which one of those potential new variety
is actually the one that fits best their needs.
- We are doing experiments,
(to find) which strains are more suitable
for the climate and our environment
to adopt them as strains.
- It's giving us an improvement for all the old strains we have.
- ICARDA has also begun experimenting
with speed-breeding technology from Australia.
- So what we do instead of growing the plants in the field,
we grow them under controlled conditions.
And by doing so, the what is before was a four years effort,
now has become a one year effort.
When more varieties that tolerant to climate change,
drought, to heat become available to farmers,
those farms will remain productive.
That means employment.
That means income.
That means maintaining rural area, alive and happy.
And by doing so, we are changing the life of those farms.
We are changing the life of those community.
We want to live in a world that is equitable,
but also that is productive,
that ensure the future for everybody.
- Agriculture is a living system.
It's subject to continuous change.
It's very important that we conserve the diversity
to make it available, to have whatever tools are needed
so that we can face these challenges.
- This is a really kind of heritage
that we are passing from generation to generation.
Everything we are producing at ICARDA is a public good.
Anybody in the world is requesting seed free of charge.
- The children of the children of my children
will still be able to have exactly
the same diversity that I had the chance of seeing.
If we give scientists enough capacities to operate,
enough freedom to operate,
we will have the solutions to avoid the climate crisis.
Making the rural area really a place alive,
happy, and full of joy.