Schmidts familietræ (www.sm1.dk)

Han var uddannet fra den Kongelige Veterinære Landbohøjskole i København, men ph. d. fra University of Minnesota. Hans specialeområder var hvedeforædling og plantegenetiske ressourcer. I sine sidste år abejdede han på det såkaldte dommedag skammer, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, der skal fungere som opbevaringssted for alle frø fra Danmark, Norge, Sverige, Finland og Island, der er et samarbejde med en næsten alle lande i verden om gemme frø i frøbanken. Kammeret ligger dybt ind e i et klippefjeld på Spitsbergen, Svalbard og kan på den måde modstå f.eks. atomkrig. Ridder af Dannebrog 2003. (https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bent_Skovmand)

Education After serving in the Danish Army, Skovmand attended the University of Minnesota in the United States as part of the Minnesota Agricultural Student Trainee international exchange program He graduated in 1971 with a major in biological and physica l sciences in agriculture, and then earned his masters in 1973 and doctorate in 1976 both in Plant Pathology from the University of Minnesota

After completing his doctorate, he joined the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in El Batán, Mexico, where he studied older seed strains and genetic variation among widespread strains.

Career Time Magazine wrote in 1991 that Skovmand, ""while not exactly a household name," had had "more to do with the welfare of the world"s five billion people than many heads of state.""

He also worked with governments and farmers across the world to increase the use of the advanced crops being developed. Continuing his work on preserving the genetic diversity among wheats, barleys, and oats, he was appointed the director of th e Nordic Gene Bank, based in Alnarp, Sweden, in 2003, and founded the Svalbard International Seed Vault. The Seed Vault, also called the "Doomsday Vault", is supported by the Global Crop Diversity Trust and aims to preserve "the raw material of ag riculture" to make it available for breeding and research even in the advent of disaster, war, or climate change.

The Vault was scheduled to open in late 2008.

Skovmand was opposed to patenting individual genes, describing it as "like copyrighting each and every word in Hamlet, and saying no one can use any word used in Hamlet without paying the author". He routinely released his catalogs of agricultura l information on CDs, which he gave away for free, never attempting to patent the work.

In his work with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Skovmand set up collaborations with for-profit companies to develop improved strains of agricultural staples, with the proviso that patents not be used in developing nations . Skovmand fell ill in January 2007, and died February 6, 2007, at age 62 in Kävlinge, Sweden, from complications from a malignant brain tumour.

Achievements Bent Skovmand has been listed as a noteworthy plant pathologist, geneticist by Marquis Who's Who.

Membership Member Danes International. Fellow: Crop Science Society of America, American Society Agronomy.

Interests Reading, golf.

https://prabook.com/web/bent.skovmand/69086

https://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/apsnetfeatures/Pages/Skovmand.aspx.

Eugenia De Los Angeles Araujo