Organic Seed Bank

	5.  ORGANIC SEED BANK        Genetic Resource Center Seed Bank                    Manila, Philippines       Collecting Seeds on the Banks Of The                       Murrumbidgee     An organic seed bank program will also be developed in conjunction with the green house farming.  A seedbank is a type of gene bank for storing seeds as a source for planting food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity and preserving rare or extinct plants used in traditional and indigenous medicine.      The seeds stored may be food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied.  A seedbank stores seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere are destroyed.  In the case of food crops, many useful plants that were developed over centuries are now no longer used for commercial agricultural production and are becoming rare. Storing seeds also guards against catastrophic events like natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, or war.  Seeds are dried to a moisture content of less than 6% and then stored in freezers at -18°C or below with little damage to their DNA and they remain viable and are easily stored in seedbanks.