The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), focuses on plants suitable for sustainable agriculture in arid climates. ICARDA banks seeds from 131,000 varieties of plants, gathered from across the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. Unfortunately, according to a recent editorial in Nature, political tensions between the West and Syria may threaten ICARDA's already tenuous operations. Worse, ICARDA is not alone -- many seed banks elsewhere are struggling to preserve their collections.