VOA科学技术2024--Two Win World Food Prize for Securing Agricultural Seeds

About 20 years ago, Cary Fowler and Geoffrey Hawtin wanted to prevent hunger and protect the world's food supply. The two men imagined a so-called "doomsday vault¹" for plant seeds. (A vault is a secure storage structure.)

Fowler and Hawtin's goal was to keep a supply of seeds safe if existing seed banks were threatened by war, climate change, or other crises. They decided² to build their storage building into the side of a mountain north of the Arctic Circle.

"To a lot of people today, it sounds like a perfectly³ reasonable thing to do," Fowler said from Saudi Arabia in an interview with the Associated Press. Seeds, he added, are a valuable natural resource that needs protection.

But Fowler said: "Fifteen years ago, shipping⁴ a lot of seeds to the closest place to the North Pole that you can fly into (and) putting them inside a mountain..." did not sound reasonable. In his words, it was "...the craziest idea anybody ever had."

The World Food Prize

Their idea became the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. The vault opened in 2008 and now holds 1.25 million seed samples from nearly every country in the world. The structure was built into the side of a mountain. It protects the seeds of over 6,000 kinds of agriculturally important plants. The Crop Trust website says: "Its purpose is to backup genebank collections to secure the foundation of our future food supply."

Last week, Fowler and Hawtin were named the 2024 World Food Prize winners for their work. Fowler is now the U.S. special diplomat⁵ for global food security. Hawtin is an agricultural scientist from Britain.

They were named the winners of the yearly prize at the U.S. Department of State in Washington. Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised the men at the announcement for their "critical role in preserving crop diversity."

Fear of climate change

For many years, countries have created seed banks to store seeds for future use. But Fowler said he was concerned that climate change would cause disorder⁶ in agriculture. This would make the seed supply even more important.

Hawtin is an executive board member at the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an international nonprofit group. He said there were a lot of threats to crops in the past, such as insects, disease, land degradation⁷, and political unrest. He said that climate change has made these problems worse. So, he and Fowler saw a need for additional secure seed storage.

Hawtin explained that climate change is changing pests and diseases. He added, "Climate change is putting a whole lot of extra problems on what has always been significant ones."

Fowler and Hawtin said they hope winning the World Food Prize will help them raise more money for seed banks around the world. Operating them is not too costly⁸. However, the financial support needs to continue forever.

"This is really a chance to get that message out and say, look, this relatively⁹ small amount of money is our insurance policy -- our insurance policy that we're going to be able to feed the world in 50 years," Hawtin said.

Norman Borlaug established the World Food Prize. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his part in what is called the "Green Revolution." That was a big effort to make crops more productive so the world's growing population would not go hungry.

This fall, Fowler and Hawtin will accept the prize in Des Moines, Iowa, the city where the food prize foundation is based. They will also split the $500,000 award. This year's prize will be presented at the yearly Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue. The conference will be held in Des Moines from October 29 to the 31.

Words in This Story

doomsday -n. the end of the world or judgement day

sample -n. a small amount of something taken for scientific study

critical -adj. very important

diversity -n. having many different kinds of things

degradation -n. the condition of breaking down and decreasing in quality

significant -adj. notable or worth discussing

insurance policy -n. a contract with an insurance company that promises to pay the holder or people named by the holder a certain amount if there is a loss of the covered property by the contract

1 vault   

n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室

参考例句：

• The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

4 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

5 diplomat   

n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人

参考例句：

• The diplomat threw in a joke, and the tension was instantly relieved.那位外交官插进一个笑话，紧张的气氛顿时缓和下来。
• He served as a diplomat in Russia before the war.战前他在俄罗斯当外交官。

6 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

7 degradation   

n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变

参考例句：

• There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。
• Gambling is always coupled with degradation.赌博总是与堕落相联系。

8 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

9 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。