27th February 2014 Global seed vault welcomes 20,000 new samples Over 20,000 crops originating from 100 countries will arrive this week at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), in time for its sixth anniversary.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) was opened on 26th February, 2008. This secure facility is located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, 810 miles (1,300 km) from the North Pole. Intended to preserve a huge variety of plant seeds and their genetic codes, it is designed to last for centuries and to survive all man-made and natural disasters – everything from climate change, to nuclear war, or even asteroid impacts. Permafrost and thick rock ensure that, even in the case of a power cut, the seed samples will remain frozen. The new samples added this week include a collection of barley from earthquake-rattled Japan, crucial to everything from beer and whiskey to miso soup and summertime tea; an untamed assortment of wild relatives of rice, maize and wheat; exotic red okra from Tennessee via the Cherokee; and, from Brazil, a humble bean that launched a national cuisine. The addition of this cornucopia of crops to the "Doomsday Seed Vault" – as some call it – means there are now a total of 820,619 individual samples or "accessions" of food crops and their wild relatives, stored deep within an Arctic mountain. Their donation also coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which maintains the seed vault in partnership with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resources Centre.
"Our annual gatherings at the seed vault are a sort of winter Olympics of crop diversity – only we are not competing against each other but against the wide array of threats, natural and manmade, ranged against the diversity of food crops, diversity that is so crucial to the future of human civilization," said Marie Haga, the Crop Trust's executive director. "We are particularly excited to be welcoming our first seed deposits from Japan, which has been very active globally in the preservation of a wide array of crop species." The seed vault is a backup, housing duplicates of living crop diversity collections kept in "genebanks" around the world that are widely and regularly shared with plant breeders. "If something bad happened to our genebank, these resources could be damaged permanently," said Prof. Kazuhiro Sato, from Okayama University in Japan. "Barley is very important not just for Japan but for the food security of the world – we have varieties that are productive even in dry conditions and in saline soils – so we need to do everything we can to ensure they always will be available to future generations."
The shipments arriving this week at Svalbard also illustrate important progress in the global effort to collect and protect the wild relatives of domesticated crops, many of which could be important sources of genetic traits such as heat and drought tolerance and disease and pest resistance. These traits will be needed to help farmers adapt to stresses that are being intensified by climate change. "CIMMYT alone already has sent 123,000 maize and wheat accessions and we are well on our way to having 100 percent of our collection duplicated in the seed vault by 2021," said Denise Costich, head of CIMMYT's Maize Germplasm Bank. "Each and every single deposit into the vault provides an option for the future," added Haga. "At a time of unprecedented demands on our natural environment, it is critical to conserve plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. This will guarantee farmers and plant breeders continued access to the raw materials they need to improve and adapt crops. Conserving crop diversity guarantees that the foundation of our agriculture is secure for the future. Drawing on a global coalition of governments and private donors, the Crop Trust is building an Endowment Fund, which will safeguard the diversity of the major food crops of the world in genebanks when complete."
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