Why Did Elon Musk Go After Bunkers Full of Seeds?

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/opinion/doge-elon-musk-usda-crops.html

No paywall link
https://archive.li/8TYH3

In a climate-controlled bunker in an unremarkable building in rural Aberdeen, Idaho, there are shelves upon shelves of meticulously labeled boxes of seed. This vault is home to many of the United States’ more than 62,000 genetically unique lines of wheat, collected over the past 127 years from around the world.

Though dormant, these seeds are alive. But unless they are continually cared for and periodically replanted, the lines will die, along with the millenniums of evolutionary history that they embody.

Since its establishment in 1898, the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Plant Germplasm System and the scientists who support it have systematically gathered and maintained the agricultural plant species that undergird our food system in vast collections such as the one in Aberdeen. The collections represent a towering achievement of foresight that food security depends on the availability of diverse plant genetic resources.

In mid-February, Trump administration officials at what has been labeled the Department of Government Efficiency fired some of the highly trained people who do this work. A court order has reinstated them, but it’s unclear when they will be allowed to resume their work. In the meantime, uncertainty around additional staffing and budget cuts, as well as the future of the collections themselves, reigns.

This should unnerve every American who eats. Our food system is only as safe as our ability to respond to the next plant disease or other emergent threat, and a strong N.P.G.S. is central to our preparedness.

*snip*