In the early 1970s, American botanist Jack Harlan proclaimed that mass extinction was underway in America’s fields. “These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine,” Harlan wrote. He was referring specifically to the genetic resources within three crops that we most depend on: wheat, rice and corn. Forty years later, his words inspired another botanist, Cary Fowler, to launch an underground seed vault in Svalbard, Norway.