IT SHOULD be carefully noted though, to keep the issue in proper perspective, that James A Marusek'a retired U.S. Navy physicist and engineer'represents the extreme right end of the political spectrum. In his Preparedness Plan, he attacks environmentalists and promotes genetically modified food.But on February 27, 2008, Science Daily reported on a ceremony in Norway that was pre-eminently mainstream'yet a variation on the same theme. The occasion was the formal opening of the Svalbard Global Seed vault, on an island in the Arctic Circle.The vault is located in a 125-metre tunnel, which was blasted into the side of a frozen mountain in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. Its purpose is to provide secure storage for seed samples of every type of food crop grown on Earth, in case of natural or manmade disaster.Officially opening the vault, were Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and African Nobel laureate, Wangari Maathai, the late Kenyan environmental activist. Ostensibly, the seeds are being stored as a long-term measure to protect biodiversity.Nevertheless, the prospect of a new Little Ice Age echoed clearly from between the lines in Stoltenberg's address.'As well as protecting against the daily loss of biodiversity,' he declared, 'the vault could also prove indispensable for restarting agricultural production at the global or regional level in the wake of a natural or manmade disaster. Contingencies for climate change have been worked into the plan.'The plan calls for housing 4.5 million samples, amounting to some two billion seeds, at minus 20 degrees Celsius for at least a thousand years. At this temperature, the Prime Minister noted, as an example, barley seeds would keep 2000 years, wheat 1700 and sorghum 20,000.The first deposit, which Stoltenberg and Maathai made jointly, consisted of a box containing 100 million seeds from 104 countries'some of them African'which will be kept in three 'very secure' rooms at the end of the tunnel.While this is a noble and farsighted idea, there is cause for African policy-makers to be concerned. Although seeds are being collected globally, the international community apparently has no official hand in this project. According to Stoltenberg, Norway alone is footing the bill.What assurances do participating African nations have that their progeny, decades or centuries hence, will be able to gain access to these strategic resources'especially if the Norwegians say 'No''What if, by that time, Norway is part of a European super-state or possibly even a North Atlantic Republic, including the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico'There is another even more threatening development though, which is of much more immediate concern. It is the alarming rate at which China and the U.S.A. are buying up land on this continent. According to reports I've read, these two countries are engaged in the greatest land grab since the 19th century scramble for Africa.I have not done any cross-checking, but one source I've seen'called the Pakalert Network (June 19, 2011)'reports that the Chinese alone have obtained enough farmland in Africa, 'to have sent to that continent over one million of their farmers in the last four years''This too, is to a very large extent a hedge against the possibility of a new Little Ice Age. What shall be the reaction of African policy makers and intellectuals'Shall we continue with 'resource control debates,' 'secession' plots and fratricidal wars
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