During a diplomatic visit to Italy, Thomas Jefferson put seeds of Piedmont rice in his pocket and smuggled them out of the country to pass them along to farmers in South Carolina. At the time, the export of the rice was punishable by death. The nation's seed banks, storehouses of the world's greatest collection of agricultural breeding stock, are allowing thousands of irreplaceable seed samples wither and die. Nearly 30,000 more samples sit in cold storage, awaiting cataloguing. And the backlog continues to grow.
Experts say the seed banks are more like seed morgues.
Researchers have little hope of saving them and no place left to transplant them. At least 37 of the 250 U.S. plant species now listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act carry genetic traits potentially useful in agriculture or horticulture. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, steward of 270 million acres of public land, has inventoried less than 5 percent of its land for potentially useful plants. A database of rare species on BLM lands contains data on less than 1 percent of the threatened and endangered species. The United States is falling victim to a dangerous genetic uniformity in its crops.