[Linkpost] “Why Did Elon Musk Go After Bunkers Full of Seeds?” by Matrice Jacobine

This is a link post. In a climate-controlled bunker in an unremarkable building in rural Aberdeen, Idaho, there are shelves upon shelves of meticulously labeled boxes of seed. This vault is home to many of the United States’ more than 62,000 genetically unique lines of wheat, collected over the past 127 years from around the world. Though dormant, these seeds are alive. But unless they are continually cared for and periodically replanted, the lines will die, along with the millenniums of evolutionary history that they embody. Since its establishment in 1898, the United States Department of Agriculture's National Plant Germplasm System and the scientists who support it have systematically gathered and maintained the agricultural plant species that undergird our food system in vast collections such as the one in Aberdeen. The collections represent a towering achievement of foresight that food security depends on the availability of diverse plant genetic resources. [...] --- First published: March 24th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YXFvBbwriE5HwJDif/why-did-elon-musk-go-after-bunkers-full-of-seeds Linkpost URL:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/opinion/doge-elon-musk-usda-crops.html --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.