Table of Contents

 

 

INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL TOUR: Svalbard Global Seed Vault Tour, Crop Trust (2024) [10-15 minutes] LISTEN: "Inside The Global Seed Vault, Where The History And Future Of Agriculture Is Stored," NPR (July 24, 2017) [35 minutes] WATCH: "Inside the Svalbard Seed Vault," Veritasium (May 4, 2016) [9 minutes] WATCH: "What's the Doomsday Seed Vault Really For?" Tom Scott (June 29, 2015) [2 minutes] READ: "A Visit To The Doomsday Vault," 60 Minutes (March 20, 2008) [20 minute read at eighth grade reading level] READ: "Syria War Forces First Withdrawal from Svalbard Global Seed Vault," NBC, September 25, 2015 [10 minute read at eighth grade reading level] Famine in History LEARNING GAME: Food Security Game, Peace Corps (2024) [20 minutes] WATCH: "Drought and Famine," Crash Course (September 5, 2014) [10 minutes] READ: "China's Great Famine: The True Story," The Guardian (January 1, 2013) [10 minute read at eighth grade reading level] Agriculture in History INFOGRAPHIC: View the transfer of goods and diseases from the Columbian Exchange, by Anita Ravi. Khan Academy (2024) Foods and Their Origins  Where Did These Foods Come From?  OF AFRICAN ORIGIN OF ASIAN ORIGIN OF AUSTRALIAN AND OCEANIAN ORIGIN BANANAS READ: The Surprising History of the Banana WATCH: "The dark history of bananas," TEDEd (November 3, 2020) [6 minutes] OF EUROPEAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN ORIGIN OF AMERICAN ORIGIN

 

    

There are more than 50,000 edible plants in the world today,

but just 15 of them provide 90 percent of the world's food energy intake.

 

10 Fruits, Nuts, and Vegetables You Did Not Know Were Human-Made

 

Agricultural biodiversity is in decline.

 

75% of the world’s food is coming from just 12 plants and five animal species.

 

The majority from widespread staple crops (wheat, rice, sugarcane, corn, and soy); a much smaller share comes from cattle, chicken, sheep, pigs, and goats.

 

 

INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL TOUR: Svalbard Global Seed Vault Tour, Crop Trust (2024) [10-15 minutes]

You can access the virtual interactive tour here or by clicking the title above.

 

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Spitsbergen Norway

 

 

"Cary Fowler...and the Vavilov Institute...engaged in the Noah-like task of gathering the seeds of about

two million varieties of food plants,

both the familiar domesticated crops and many of their wild relatives,

in order to create the first global seed bank."

 

(The New Yorker, "Sowing for Apocalypse," August 20, 2007)

 

 

"Entrance to Seed Vault (cropped)," from Wikimedia Commons, December 22, 2019

 

LISTEN: "Inside The Global Seed Vault, Where The History And Future Of Agriculture Is Stored," NPR (July 24, 2017) [35 minutes]

You can read the transcript here, or by clicking on the title in the embedded player below. 

 

WATCH: "Inside the Svalbard Seed Vault," Veritasium (May 4, 2016) [9 minutes]

You can access the original video here, or by clicking the "YouTube" button at the bottom of the embedded player.

 

 

 

 

WATCH: "What's the Doomsday Seed Vault Really For?" Tom Scott (June 29, 2015) [2 minutes]

You can access the original video here, or by clicking the "YouTube" button at the bottom of the embedded player.

 

 

Or, watch Motherboard's, "Exploring the Arctic's Global Seed Vault," November 11, 2016 [5 minutes] and CNN's "See inside the 'Doomsday' seed vault," October 22, 2015 [3 minutes]

 

 

 

READ: "A Visit To The Doomsday Vault," 60 Minutes (March 20, 2008) [20 minute read at eighth grade reading level]

You can access the article here. If you have a Paramount+ account, you can stream the 60 Minutes episode on the same webpage. 

 

Or, read BBC's "The Gloomy Arctic Seed Bank That's Key to Future Crops," January 12, 2016 [10 minute read at eighth grade reading level]

 

 

 

READ: "Syria War Forces First Withdrawal from Svalbard Global Seed Vault," NBC, September 25, 2015 [10 minute read at eighth grade reading level]

You can access the article here. 

 

 

 

 

Famine in History

 

CROSS-LINK: The Irish Potato Famine and Other Famines in World History

 

You can access this wiki page by clicking the title above.

 

 

 

LEARNING GAME: Food Security Game, Peace Corps (2024) [20 minutes]

You can access the learning game here or by clicking on the title above.

 

 

 

WATCH: "Drought and Famine," Crash Course (September 5, 2014) [10 minutes]

You can access the original video here, or by clicking the "YouTube" button at the bottom of the embedded player.

 

 

 

 

READ: "China's Great Famine: The True Story," The Guardian (January 1, 2013) [10 minute read at eighth grade reading level]

You can access the article here.

 

Or, read "Ten Worst Famines of the 20th Century," The Sydney Morning Herald (August 8, 2015) [10 minute read at eighth grade reading level]

 

 

 

 

Agriculture in History

 

INFOGRAPHIC: View the transfer of goods and diseases from the Columbian Exchange, by Anita Ravi. Khan Academy (2024)

Infographic showing the transfer of goods and diseases from the Columbian Exchange. By Anita Ravi. Khan Academy (2024)

 

 

Date of First McDonalds Restaurant by Continent

 

 

Foods and Their Origins

 

MAP INTERACT: Where Our Foods Come From, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (2016)

 

You can view the interactive map here, or view the non-interactive map below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 Where Did These Foods Come From? 

 

 

 

Foods Indigenous to the Western Hemisphere

 

 

10 Foods Native to the Americas

 

 

 

OF AFRICAN ORIGIN

 

 

 

COFFEE: The History of Coffee

 

• Yemenis Reclaim Their Coffee Heritage, New York Times, November 14, 2021

 

• The Exploitation of Brazilian coffee farmers

 

•  People Used to Clean their Hands with Coffee

 

• How Old is the Coffee Bean? Researchers Investigate. NPR (April 18, 2024). Coffee beans may trace back 600,000 years

 

 

OF ASIAN ORIGIN

 

 

 

APPLES: All About Apples: Some History, a Recipe, and Recommendations

 

• Why Your Supermarket Sells Only 5 Kinds of Apples

 

 

OF AUSTRALIAN AND OCEANIAN ORIGIN

 

BANANAS

 

from Wikimedia Commons

READ: The Surprising History of the Banana

 

WATCH: "The dark history of bananas," TEDEd (November 3, 2020) [6 minutes]

 

 

OF EUROPEAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN ORIGIN

 

WHEAT: Wheat Domestication--The History and Origins of Floury Grains 

 

 

OF AMERICAN ORIGIN

 

CORN

 

CORN: Rethinking the Corny History of Maize

 

WILD RICE

 

 

• Wild Rice and the Ojibwe

 

• The True Story of Wild Rice, North America's Misunderstood Grain 

 

 

POTATOES/TOMATOES

 

Origins of Species of Corn, Potatoes, Tomatoes and Some Other Interesting History

 

 

SUNFLOWER

 

How the Russians Saved America's Sunflower

 

COCOA

 

 

History of Cocoa and Chocolate

 

• Cocoa, Cote d'Ivorie and Children's Education 

 

 

SQUASH

 

Foods Indigenous to the Western Hemisphere

 

• How Did Squash Get Its Name?

 

 

BLUEBERRIES 

 

 

• History of Blueberries

 

 Elizabeth White: The Woman Who Invented the Blueberry

 

CRANBERRIES

 

 

 

https://extension.umaine.edu/cranberries/cranberry-facts-and-history/

 

VANILLA

 

The History of Vanilla

 

The Bittersweet Beginnings of Vanilla Cultivation Can Be Traced Back to the Far-Flung Isle of Réunion. Smithsonian Magazine, June 2025.

 

 

 

Three Sisters as featured on the reverse of the 2009 Native American U.S. dollar coin

Three Sisters Agriculture

 

Meet the Three Sisters Who Sustain Native America

 

Three Sisters . . .and the Fourth Sister No One Really Talks About

• Bean
• Corn
• Squash
• Sunflower 

 

Corn, beans and squash also complement each other nutritionally.

• Corn provides carbohydrates;
• Beans are rich in protein, which balances the lack of amino acids in the corn.
• Squash yield vitamins and rich oil from their seeds.