More seed is sent to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

In May 2024, another large batch of seed left World Vegetable Center headquarters in Taiwan, headed for safety duplication in the tunnels of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. This is part of ongoing safety back-up of all accessions conserved in the International Vegetable Genebank – the world’s largest collection of publicly available vegetable germplasm. By 2025, all will have been safely duplicated in Svalbard.

Yun-ping Wang, new Deputy Director – Partnerships, and Maarten van Zonneveld, Head of Genetic Resources, with genebank staff, prepare to help load the seed boxes

This shipment contained 4,800 accessions of 135 different species, adding to the 8,545 accessions of 180 species sent in May 2023, and the 11,113 unique accessions in 2022 when WorldVeg made the largest deposit of seed to Svalbard of any organization in that year. Including this 2024 batch, WorldVeg has duplicated 88% of its genebank collections. And since beginning the process in 2008, a total of 53,596 vegetable seed accessions have been sent – some 1.5 tonnes of precious genetic material in all…

And on 28 May, the ten ‘treasure chests’ of vegetable genetic resources, arrived safely in Svalbard, and were taken in to the world’s largest repository of crop diversity, raising the total number of the samples in its vaults to 1.29 million. The largest depositor at this opening of the vault was again the World Vegetable Centre, followed by the National Agrobiodiversity Center in South Korea, and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). Read more at New Seeds in Svalbard Global Seed Vault – regjeringen.no

(https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/new-seeds-in-svalbard-global-seed-vault/id3040913/).

Photos by NordGen

Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the world’s ultimate security facility for global seed diversity, which is an essential part of countries’ preparedness for ensuring future food production. Depositors back up their seed collections in case of unforeseen crises, such as war, civil strife, financial woes or natural disasters. In the vault, valuable collections of crop diversity are preserved to ensure that the world’s agriculture is future-proofed for the benefit of all humanity. Scientists and breeders rely on crop diversity conserved in genebanks to develop new varieties that can withstand the effects of climate change. The Seed Vault operates through a partnership between the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) and the Crop Trust.