Rising global temperatures and dramatic changes in weather patterns have led the climate to become increasingly unpredictable. This uncertainty not only impacts people’s everyday lives, but also creates problems for farmers.
In order to overcome this, a “Doomsday” seed vault costing £4m in construction has been implemented in Svalbard, to the north of mainland Norway, as a back-up to the network of seed banks around the world.
The air inside the vault has been cooled to between -18C and -20C but even without power the vault will still be below freezing temperatures 200 years from now under the worst climate scenario. A quarter of a million samples, totaling around 10 million seeds from virtually every country in the world, will be carried and stored deep inside the vault.
William Elborne, Business Director of Property and Casualty EMEA of Lloyd’s broker Aon, said: “The main concerns here are loss or damage to the seeds so insuring against natural perils like fires and earthquakes would be one area worth looking into. The financial value of all these seeds would also need to be assessed in order to establish what the cost of replacing them might be.
“If this vault were to be destroyed we would have to look at the costs of re-growing, re-seeding, re-producing and installing a replacement vault. This would typically be covered under a Property Insurance cover.
“Crisis risk would also be taken into consideration as political risks from terrorist or animal rights campaigners may try to blow up the vault. There is also the risk that Norway may not want to give the seeds back but this is highly unlikely.”
About 2.5 billion people in developing countries rely on agriculture for their livelihood so the seed vault should ensure that major food crops are not lost and provide food security for the developing world.
“If the seeds belong to a government of a third world country or a health food programme and they get lost or damaged then there would be liability issues so liability insurance would have to come into action,” Elborne added.
Phil Cottle, Managing Director of Lloyd’s insurer ForestRe, echoed similar views. He said: “Likely insurance would cover costs of lost yield wherever the crops are grown, which would be linked in to the costs of managing the seed transport, replanting, crop husbandry costs and extended land rents.
“Insurers would want a threshold premium to make the research worthwhile. One would need to put a total "value at risk" to insurers or their consultants to open the discussion, therefore needing to know what the total cost of this seed recycling programme is per year as well as the crop types that are being stored within the vault.”
