When civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975, agricultural scientist Dr Geoff Hawtin was left with little time to try to save the thousands of priceless seeds he had collected from across the Middle East.
Under gunfire, he and his team knew they needed to protect the 17,000 precious seed packets knowing they would be vital for the food security of future generations.
Driving 50km to the Syrian border over roads covered with landmines, he made five trips to take the collection to Damascus to safety.
It was then he realised the stakes for the Middle East as the seedbed of the world and made it his lifelong mission to protect the Mesopotamian heritage of the region.
It led to decades of work in helping to create a back-up seed bank in the North Pole to ensure people in hundreds of years time will still be able to grow crops to eat.
“You cannot put a value on these collections,” he told The National. “It could ultimately keep feeding people in 50 years, 100 years, 200 years time. They are extremely valuable.
“Although gene banks are meant to be safe, they are never totally safe, so it is important to back up these collections and have them in at least two locations.”
After studying at Cambridge University, he was given a grant by the Ford Foundation and the Canadian government to breed improved crops in the Middle East, based in Lebanon.
It was during this work that he realised how important it was to collect the seeds and keep them safe.
“I realised its value was not just for today but its future value,” he said.
“The Lebanon collection was very important; we had collected plants from across the Middle East.
“When the fighting broke out, we knew we had to move it. We didn’t think about the danger, the gunfire, we just wanted to get it out. We took it out pretty much under gunfire and into Syria just to keep the collection safe.
“The night before there was a lot of shelling things and it calmed down in the day, so we loaded thousands of the seeds into cars and drove to the border.
“We didn’t have a back up. If the Lebanon seeds had been stolen, the whole collection would have been lost.
“When we got to Syria, we started thinking: 'Hang on, what if this happens again, what do we do?', so Lebanon gave us an impetus to do that.”
Dr Hawtin, now 75, and his team moved his research to Aleppo and ensured copies were made of the seeds and saved elsewhere.
His programme then became the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (Icarda) in 1977, which he ran for a while. It was based in Aleppo until the war in 2012 before it had to relocate to Beirut.
“It is lucky we did make copies of the seeds,” he said.
“When fighting broke out in Syria in 2012 we had to get out and the gene bank was looted and everything was destroyed. Thankfully, we had copied the Lebanon collection and we could use the duplicates to replace all the lost seeds.”
It was the incident in Lebanon back in 1975 that led to him being instrumental in the creation of a safe storage place for all the world’s seeds in case another disaster struck – and where safer than the North Pole?
It led to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault being built 300 metres above sea level inside an ice mountain in the Arctic Circle.
The vault, nicknamed the Doomsday Vault, holds more than 1.4 million seed samples of more than 6,000 plant species and is the last line of defence against threats to global food security.
“We did two things after Lebanon. We set up a trust fund called the Global Crop Diversity Fund which supports gene banks,” he said.
“A lot of national programmes do collections but did not have the money to maintain them. They would get a nice collection, put it in a gene bank but would not have enough money to fund the electricity and would lose the whole lot.
“The idea was to provide a safety net and support some of the big collections around the world that were really at the heart of plant breeding globally.
“The other thing we did was to set up Svalbard as a safety net to allow all these international collections to put a back up collection in a very secure location.
“The most secure we could think of was to put it into the permafrost in the side of a mountain near the North Pole.”
The centre contains three large airtight vaults that are artificially cooled to minus 18ºC, which can hold four million seeds and is accessed through an ice tunnel.
“The idea is that this is one of the safest places you could be in the world so if anything did happen, most of that seed would be viable for decades, and to lengthen that time it is artificially cooled,” he said.
“Everything is white because of the frost, it is surreal.”
It took more than three decades from his initial dream of creating a global seed ark to it becoming a reality.
After the move to Syria, the seeds he had rescued became Icarda’s core collection and Dr Hawtin went on to lead international breeding programmes on the Middle East’s chickpeas, lentils and beans and was behind work which led to the development of chickpeas with cold tolerance for Mediterranean countries.
He went on to head the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in Rome in 1991 to 2003, which was run by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the world’s largest publicly funded agricultural research organisation.
His work was pivotal in negotiating the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, which was agreed upon in 2001, under which nations agreed to have their seeds stored in the same place.
It then paved the way for a world seed bank to be created.
In 2004, he and his colleague Dr Cary Fowler were asked to conduct a study to assess the feasibility of Svalbard and drew up its technical specifications.
Dr Hawtin, who has been a trustee at Kew Gardens and was awarded an OBE by the late Queen Elizabeth II, then created the Global Crop Diversity Trust, or Crop Trust, which now finances the vault alongside the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen).
The Middle East is an extremely important region for diversity of some of these crops because a lot of them originated there, like wheat and barley
Geoff Hawtin,
agricultural scientist
Last month, Dr Hawtin and his colleague Dr Fowler, currently the US special envoy for global food security, were awarded the World Food Prize for their work in protecting seeds for the future at Svalbard.
“I was extremely happy, I thought that was nice but why me? There are 1,700 different gene banks around the world and everyone will have someone in charge of them,” he said.
“It is wonderful to have it but it is also very humbling.”
He has been devoting his career to protecting plants in the Middle East.
From his time in Lebanon, he travelled around Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria collecting rare plants to protect them for future generations.
“I went to Lebanon in 1974 to work on a programme that was breeding new varieties of crops for the Middle East and North Africa region – from Pakistan to Morocco and Turkey down to Ethiopia,” he said.
“There was very little research work at the time on the crops of that region so I was appointed to start a programme to breed improved varieties of broad beans, lentils and chick peas, which are important crops in the region, but there had been very little research done on them.
“The idea was to come up with varieties that were higher yielding, had more protein and resistant to pest and diseases, that would be useful for the farmers in the region.
“To start a breeding programme you need a lot of genetic diversity, like lots of different types of lentils so you can begin to make crosses between them and select out what is the important material for breeding.
“One of the first things I did when I went to the region was go out and collect materials which the farmers were growing.
“There were huge number of different varieties from the highlands of Afghanistan to the Euphrates valley. A lot of effort had gone into collecting it and it was material that could be valuable in the future beyond just its immediate use.”
Climate change
Dr Hawtin said the Middle East was important for food security in the future as important crops, such as wheat and barley, originated there up to 10,000 years ago and will be key to developing crops that can withstand climate change.
“The Middle East is an extremely important region for diversity of some of these crops because a lot of them originated there, like wheat and barley,” he said.
“Because they originated there it means there is still a lot of genetical diversity in that area that can be useful in breeding crops for the future, particularly drought-resistant crops.
“There is a lot of valuable genes there that can be used not just in that region but around the world for improving crops.
“Some of the wild wheats can be very small straggly plants growing in very dry hot environments and some of the genes that allow them to survive in those environments could be extremely useful for growing new varieties of wheat in the future that are able to withstand climate change and drought and high temperatures.
“The collections are hugely valuable because they have genes that may not be that useful today but could be extremely useful tomorrow. Climate change can bring different pests and diseases, so we are looking at resistance.
“There maybe a pest that exists somewhere in the world in a small way now and there maybe resistance to that pest in that area, but with climate change that could suddenly become of major importance.
“So, having that resistance that could exist in that one little area could be used to breed different varieties for the world in the future and it becomes very important.”
In 2004, Dr Hawtin set up the Global Crop Diversity Trust to conserve crop diversity and to make it available for the benefit of everyone.
He created an endowment fund, which presently stands at $300 million, to ensure that all nations are able to protect their seed banks.
Following his accolade, he is hoping it will help raise awareness of the importance of protecting crops and help increase the funding.
“Hopefully, it will help raise awareness of something that is so vitally important. Some people are not even aware that gene banks exist,” he said.
“The diversity of crops is so important for feeding the world in the future. If it brings more funding to ensure these materials are not lost, then great.”
Crop Trust
His next endeavour will be trying to increase funding to ensure the world can be fed 100 years from now.
“My proudest moment has been setting up the Crop Trust. It arose from gene banks that were experiencing financial difficulties and clearly needed some long-term funding support,” he said.
“It means we can give them funding if they are unable to pay for their electricity so all the crops are not destroyed.
“I’m hoping this award will bring attention to the issue, the endowment is at $300 million and hoping to get up to $500 million to get us to the next level of security.
“For the world to have complete security for all significant crops we need $800 million. If you think about it, $800m is not a huge amount of money.
“That would give you an insurance policy that you could feed the world 100 years from now. What better investment is there? It’s rewarding knowing that the work that we have done will help feed people 200 years from now.”
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Ain Issa camp:
- Established in 2016
- Houses 13,309 people, 2,092 families, 62 per cent children
- Of the adult population, 49 per cent men, 51 per cent women (not including foreigners annexe)
- Most from Deir Ezzor and Raqqa
- 950 foreigners linked to ISIS and their families
- NGO Blumont runs camp management for the UN
- One of the nine official (UN recognised) camps in the region
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Tickets
Tickets start at Dh100 for adults, while children can enter free on the opening day. For more information, visit www.mubadalawtc.com.
THE BIO
Age: 30
Favourite book: The Power of Habit
Favourite quote: "The world is full of good people, if you cannot find one, be one"
Favourite exercise: The snatch
Favourite colour: Blue
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
How to become a Boglehead
Bogleheads follow simple investing philosophies to build their wealth and live better lives. Just follow these steps.
• Spend less than you earn and save the rest. You can do this by earning more, or being frugal. Better still, do both.
• Invest early, invest often. It takes time to grow your wealth on the stock market. The sooner you begin, the better.
• Choose the right level of risk. Don't gamble by investing in get-rich-quick schemes or high-risk plays. Don't play it too safe, either, by leaving long-term savings in cash.
• Diversify. Do not keep all your eggs in one basket. Spread your money between different companies, sectors, markets and asset classes such as bonds and property.
• Keep charges low. The biggest drag on investment performance is all the charges you pay to advisers and active fund managers.
• Keep it simple. Complexity is your enemy. You can build a balanced, diversified portfolio with just a handful of ETFs.
• Forget timing the market. Nobody knows where share prices will go next, so don't try to second-guess them.
• Stick with it. Do not sell up in a market crash. Use the opportunity to invest more at the lower price.
MATCH INFO
Delhi Daredevils 174-4 (20 ovs)
Mumbai Indians 163 (19.3 ovs)
Delhi won the match by 11 runs
Day 1 results:
Open Men (bonus points in brackets)
New Zealand 125 (1) beat UAE 111 (3)
India 111 (4) beat Singapore 75 (0)
South Africa 66 (2) beat Sri Lanka 57 (2)
Australia 126 (4) beat Malaysia -16 (0)
Open Women
New Zealand 64 (2) beat South Africa 57 (2)
England 69 (3) beat UAE 63 (1)
Australia 124 (4) beat UAE 23 (0)
New Zealand 74 (2) beat England 55 (2)
Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
THE BIO:
Sabri Razouk, 74
Athlete and fitness trainer
Married, father of six
Favourite exercise: Bench press
Must-eat weekly meal: Steak with beans, carrots, broccoli, crust and corn
Power drink: A glass of yoghurt
Role model: Any good man
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3EFounder%3A%20Hani%20Abu%20Ghazaleh%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20with%20an%20office%20in%20Montreal%3Cbr%3EFounded%3A%202018%3Cbr%3ESector%3A%20Virtual%20Reality%3Cbr%3EInvestment%20raised%3A%20%241.2%20million%2C%20and%20nearing%20close%20of%20%245%20million%20new%20funding%20round%3Cbr%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%2012%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
TOURNAMENT INFO
2018 ICC World Twenty20 Asian Western Regional Qualifier
The top three teams progress to the Asia Qualifier
Thursday results
UAE beat Kuwait by 86 runs
Qatar beat Bahrain by five wickets
Saudi Arabia beat Maldives by 35 runs
Friday fixtures
10am, third-place playoff – Saudi Arabia v Kuwait
3pm, final – UAE v Qatar
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid
When: April 25, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Allianz Arena, Munich
Live: BeIN Sports HD
Second leg: May 1, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
First-round leaderbaord
-5 C Conners (Can)
-3 B Koepka (US), K Bradley (US), V Hovland (Nor), A Wise (US), S Horsfield (Eng), C Davis (Aus);
-2 C Morikawa (US), M Laird (Sco), C Tringale (US)
Selected others: -1 P Casey (Eng), R Fowler (US), T Hatton (Eng)
Level B DeChambeau (US), J Rose (Eng)
1 L Westwood (Eng), J Spieth (US)
3 R McIlroy (NI)
4 D Johnson (US)
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
The biog
Name: Abeer Al Bah
Born: 1972
Husband: Emirati lawyer Salem Bin Sahoo, since 1992
Children: Soud, born 1993, lawyer; Obaid, born 1994, deceased; four other boys and one girl, three months old
Education: BA in Elementary Education, worked for five years in a Dubai school
Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.
A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Defending champions
World Series: South Africa
Women’s World Series: Australia
Gulf Men’s League: Dubai Exiles
Gulf Men’s Social: Mediclinic Barrelhouse Warriors
Gulf Vets: Jebel Ali Dragons Veterans
Gulf Women: Dubai Sports City Eagles
Gulf Under 19: British School Al Khubairat
Gulf Under 19 Girls: Dubai Exiles
UAE National Schools: Al Safa School
International Invitational: Speranza 22
International Vets: Joining Jack
READ MORE ABOUT CORONAVIRUS
ENGLAND SQUAD
Joe Root (captain), Dom Sibley, Rory Burns, Dan Lawrence, Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope, Ben Foakes (wicketkeeper), Moeen Ali, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes, Jack Leach, Stuart Broad
FIRST TEST SCORES
England 458
South Africa 361 & 119 (36.4 overs)
England won by 211 runs and lead series 1-0
Player of the match: Moeen Ali (England)
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
LAST-16 EUROPA LEAGUE FIXTURES
Wednesday (Kick-offs UAE)
FC Copenhagen (0) v Istanbul Basaksehir (1) 8.55pm
Shakhtar Donetsk (2) v Wolfsburg (1) 8.55pm
Inter Milan v Getafe (one leg only) 11pm
Manchester United (5) v LASK (0) 11pm
Thursday
Bayer Leverkusen (3) v Rangers (1) 8.55pm
Sevilla v Roma (one leg only) 8.55pm
FC Basel (3) v Eintracht Frankfurt (0) 11pm
Wolves (1) Olympiakos (1) 11pm
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
The%20Roundup
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Lee%20Sang-yong%3Cbr%3EStars%3A%20Ma%20Dong-seok%2C%20Sukku%20Son%2C%20Choi%20Gwi-hwa%3Cbr%3ERating%3A%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
A%20MAN%20FROM%20MOTIHARI
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
