The world’s largest seed vault the Svalbard Global Seed Vault just received its largest deposit of seeds since being opened in 2008. Close to 60,000 new seed samples were added, bringing the total number of seeds in the vault to more than one million.
The vault has undergone recent €20 million reinforcements after melting permafrost had entered the vault three years ago, which included a new concrete waterproof access tunnel.
Located 430 ft (130 m) above sea level, north of the Arctic Circle on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg welcomed attendees from around the world for a formal ceremony that was held on February 25th.
The seeds were brought in by their respective caretakers and the names read aloud one by one as they entered the tunnel. The UN had set this year as the goal to safeguard the genetic diversity of crops to end world hunger by 2030. Solberg called this event “especially timely” in regards to global warming and the climate crisis, and added;
Now we have planned for worst-case scenarios in a better way.
This latest deposit included seeds of 36 gene banks from each of the 7 continents, bringing the total number to 85 depositors.
Several first-time depositors included:
The first indigenous US tribe, Cherokee Nation, the UK’s Kew Gardens, the Julius Kühn Institute from Germany, the University of Haifa from Israel, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique from Morocco, the Baekdudaegan National Arboretum from South Korea, Suceava Genebank ‘Mihai Cristea’ from Romania, and the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute from Lebanon.
The Crop Trust Executive Director, Stefan Schmitz talks about the importance of storing food crops and plant varieties in the wake of global warming:
As the pace of climate change and biodiversity loss increases, there is new urgency surrounding efforts to save food crops at risk of extinction. The large scope of today’s seed deposit reflects worldwide concern about the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss on food production, but more importantly, it demonstrates a growing global commitment – from the institutions and countries that have made deposits today and indeed the world – to the conservation and use of the crop diversity that is crucial for farmers in their efforts to adapt to changing growing conditions.
As our climate continues to experience weather extremes the seed banks are already being used by farmers and crop growers needing different varieties. Hannes Dempewolf, who helps run the Norwegian vault, comments about the importance of the recent deposit; “As we see the climate heating up and places looking for [crop] varieties to use in more challenging conditions, these seed banks are being more actively used.”
Many countries around the world are feeling the effects of climate change, as the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo spoke about at the vault; “It is the great insurance policy for food security. Agriculture in Ghana is already under pressure from climate change.”
More than 1,700 gene banks are located throughout the world today, but the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the most important because it has the largest variety of crop diversity on the planet. The intention is to provide backups from different seed banks around the world to this one location in case of a cataclysmic event. The seed vault still has much more room as it can store up to 4.5 million seed varieties.
