Taiwan is to give samples of 170 millet species to the world’s “doomsday vault” in Svalbard, Norway, in case of extreme climate change, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
A Taiwanese delegation is to travel to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the arctic circle to deliver the samples, the ministry said at a joint news conference in Taipei with National Central University’s Taiwan Polar Institute.
The millet seeds — the first of a series of crop seeds to be sent — would serve as a backup genetic resource to Taiwan’s domestic seed bank, the ministry said.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
The project to preserve millet seeds at the Norway-owned genetic depository dubbed the “doomsday vault” marked a milestone in the nation’s efforts to promote international scientific cooperation and sustainable development, it said.
The vault is expected to receive the millet seed package on Wednesday next week, it said.
Millet is a staple for many indigenous Taiwanese cultures and features prominently in their rituals, said university president Jou Jing-yang (周景揚), who is expected to attend the event celebrating the seeds’ delivery.
The crop plays a key role in the nation’s food security and sustainable agriculture strategy against climate warming, Jou said.
Advances in technology and the economy would not change humanity’s need for food, said Lin Hsueh-shih (林學詩), director of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute.
The council of agriculture, the ministry’s predecessor, 31 years ago established a national seed bank to secure future generations’ food supply, Lin said, adding that the monthly electricity bill to operate it is NT$10 million (US$309,837).
In 2021, the UN named last year the International Year of Millets, recognizing that the staple’s resilience to droughts, floods and cold weather could be needed to deal with the implications of extreme climate change, he said.
Low water requirements, disease resistance, high nutritional value and not needing pesticides are among other qualities that make millet suitable for regions hard-struck by global warming, Lin said.
Making use of the seed bank in Norway means Taiwan would share the seeds with other nations in need, boosting sustainability globally, he added.
The Svalbard vault, which was built on Spitsbergen island in 2004, houses sample seeds for 4.5 million species of agricultural plants, the university said in a news release.
The island is the world’s northernmost permanent settlement, it added.
The vault, designed to survive an earthquake measuring 10 on the Richter scale and a nuclear explosion, is 2km from Taiwan’s artic station, it said.
Permafrost and modern facilities achieve cold storage at the seed bank, the university said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS