About 20 years ago, Cary Fowler and Geoffrey Hawtin wanted to prevent hunger and protect the world’s food supply. The two men imagined a so-called “doomsday vault” for plant seeds. (A vault is a secure storage structure.) 

大约 20 年前，卡里·福勒 (Cary Fowler) 和杰弗里·霍廷 (Geoffrey Hawtin) 希望防止饥饿并保护世界粮食供应。 两人想象了一个所谓的“末日金库”来存放植物种子。 （保险库是一种安全的存储结构。） 

Fowler and Hawtin’s goal was to keep a supply of seeds safe if existing seed banks were threatened by war, climate change, or other crises. They decided to build their storage building into the side of a mountain north of the Arctic Circle. 

福勒和霍廷的目标是在现有种子库受到战争、气候变化或其他危机威胁时确保种子供应安全。 他们决定将仓库建在北极圈以北的一座山的一侧。 

“To a lot of people today, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” Fowler said from Saudi Arabia in an interview with the Associated Press. Seeds, he added, are a valuable natural resource that needs protection. 

“对于今天的很多人来说，这听起来是一件完全合理的事情，”福勒在沙特阿拉伯接受美联社采访时说。 他补充说，种子是一种宝贵的自然资源，需要保护。 

But Fowler said: “Fifteen years ago, shipping a lot of seeds to the closest place to the North Pole that you can fly into (and) putting them inside a mountain…” did not sound reasonable. In his words, it was “…the craziest idea anybody ever had.” 

但福勒说：“十五年前，将大量种子运送到距离北极最近的地方，你可以飞到（并）将它们放入山中……”听起来不太合理。 用他的话说，这是“……任何人曾经有过的最疯狂的想法。”

Their idea became the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Svalbard. The vault opened in 2008 and now holds 1.25 million seed samples from nearly every country in the world. The structure was built into the side of a mountain. It protects the seeds of over 6,000 kinds of agriculturally important plants. The Crop Trust website says: “Its purpose is to backup genebank collections to secure the foundation of our future food supply.” 

他们的想法变成了位于挪威斯瓦尔巴群岛的斯瓦尔巴全球种子库。 该金库于 2008 年开放，目前保存着来自世界上几乎每个国家的 125 万份种子样本。 该结构建在山的一侧。 它保护 6,000 多种重要农业植物的种子。 农作物信托网站称：“其目的是备份基因库收藏，以确保我们未来粮食供应的基础。” 

Last week, Fowler and Hawtin were named the 2024 World Food Prize winners for their work. Fowler is now the U.S. special diplomat for global food security. Hawtin is an agricultural scientist from Britain. 

上周，福勒和霍廷因其工作而被评为 2024 年世界粮食奖获得者。 福勒现任美国全球粮食安全特别外交官。 霍廷是一位来自英国的农业科学家。 

They were named the winners of the yearly prize at the U.S. Department of State in Washington. Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised the men at the announcement for their “critical role in preserving crop diversity.” 

他们被华盛顿美国国务院评为年度奖获得者。 国务卿安东尼·布林肯在宣布时赞扬了这些人“在保护作物多样性方面发挥的关键作用”。

For many years, countries have created seed banks to store seeds for future use. But Fowler said he was concerned that climate change would cause disorder in agriculture. This would make the seed supply even more important. 

多年来，各国建立了种子库来储存种子以供将来使用。 但福勒表示，他担心气候变化会导致农业混乱。 这将使种子供应变得更加重要。 

Hawtin is an executive board member at the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an international nonprofit group. He said there were a lot of threats to crops in the past, such as insects, disease, land degradation, and political unrest. He said that climate change has made these problems worse. So, he and Fowler saw a need for additional secure seed storage. 

霍廷是国际非营利组织全球作物多样性信托基金的执行董事会成员。 他说，过去农作物面临很多威胁，例如昆虫、疾病、土地退化和政治动荡。 他说，气候变化使这些问题变得更加严重。 因此，他和福勒认为需要额外安全的种子存储。 

Hawtin explained that climate change is changing pests and diseases. He added, “Climate change is putting a whole lot of extra problems on what has always been significant ones.” 

霍廷解释说，气候变化正在改变害虫和疾病。 他补充道，“气候变化给原本重大的问题带来了很多额外的问题。”   

Fowler and Hawtin said they hope winning the World Food Prize will help them raise more money for seed banks around the world. Operating them is not too costly. However, the financial support needs to continue forever. 

福勒和霍廷表示，他们希望赢得世界粮食奖将帮助他们为世界各地的种子库筹集更多资金。 运营它们的成本并不太高。 然而，财政支持需要永远持续下去。 

“This is really a chance to get that message out and say, look, this relatively small amount of money is our insurance policy -- our insurance policy that we’re going to be able to feed the world in 50 years,” Hawtin said. 

霍廷说：“这确实是一个传达信息的机会，你看，这笔相对较少的钱就是我们的保险单——我们的保险单是我们将能够在 50 年内养活全世界。” 。 

Norman Borlaug established the World Food Prize. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his part in what is called the “Green Revolution.” That was a big effort to make crops more productive so the world’s growing population would not go hungry. 

诺曼·博洛格设立了世界粮食奖。 1970 年，他因在“绿色革命”中的贡献而获得诺贝尔和平奖。 这是为了提高农作物的产量而做出的巨大努力，这样世界上不断增长的人口就不会挨饿。 

This fall, Fowler and Hawtin will accept the prize in Des Moines, Iowa, the city where the food prize foundation is based. They will also split the $500,000 award. This year’s prize will be presented at the yearly Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue. The conference will be held in Des Moines from October 29 to the 31. 

今年秋天，福勒和霍廷将在食品奖基金会所在地爱荷华州得梅因市领奖。 他们还将瓜分 50 万美元的奖金。 今年的奖项将在一年一度的诺曼·博洛格国际对话中颁发。 会议将于10月29日至31日在得梅因举行。