Frozen for the future: Global seed bank receives historic deposit

By Sylvia Chebet

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault received a historic deposit of more than 30,000 new seed samples from 23 depositors across 21 countries, including seven international genebanks.

This marks the largest number of depositors since the Seed Vault received samples from a record-breaking 35 genebanks in 2020.

This highlights the urgent global effort to conserve crop diversity in the face of escalating climate change, conflict and other crises.

"Climate change and conflict threaten infrastructure and impact food security for over 700 million people in more than 75 countries worldwide. Genebanks are ramping up efforts to back-up seed collections, and we are proud to support them by providing a safe haven in Svalbard,” said Stefan Schmitz, executive director of the Crop Trust.

Back-up of back-ups

The former executive director of Svalbard Marie Haga describes the Svalbard Global Seed as "the back-up of the back-ups in a huge global system."

Built at a cost of nine million USD, the Seed Vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples. With each sample containing an average count of 500 seeds, a maximum of 2.25 billion seeds can be stored in the facility.

Currently, there are nearly one million seed varieties from all over the world stored at the seed vault located

"When we lose genetic material around the globe, in the real world, for reasons of war or natural disaters its very comforting to know that we can retrieve the material here and start afresh and produce the food that the world needs," Haga adds.

"A standard practice for all working genebanks is to have back-up duplicate seeds in other locations.." Luis Salazar, Crop Trust Communications Manager, tells TRT Afrika.

"In fact, per FAO genebank standards, all genebanks should have two safety duplicates in place – one in another genebank (preferably in another country), and a second one in Svalbard, which is solely a back-up location"

When Syria lost its seedbank in Alepo during the war, its deposits in Svalbard became a lifeline. The country retrieved seeds from the vault and was able to regenerate various crops.

Why Svalbard?

Located just 1300km (800 miles) from the North Pole, Svalbard was chosen for its cold climate and permafrost which make the area a perfect location for underground cold storage.

The Seed Vault is located an extraordinary 120 meters into the rock, ensuring that the rooms where seeds are kept will remain naturally frozen even in the event of failure of the mechanical cooling system and rising external air temperatures due to climate change

The facility was built to last around 200 years and can withstand earthquakes and explosion. Being on the side of a mountain, the vault will remain above the sea level even if all the ice melts.

There are daily flights to the Norwegian archipelago, located between mainland Norway and the North Pole, known for its rugged, remote terrain of glaciers and frozen tundra sheltering polar bears, Svalbard reindeer and Arctic foxes

African depositors

Chad, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia,Papua New Guinea and Suriname made their contributions for the first time this year.

Chad is depositing 1,145 samples of sesame, rice, maize and sorghum. This contribution is particularly significant, as these crop varieties are adapted to Chad’s harsh climate, and therefore crucial for developing crops that can withstand increasing temperatures and erratic rainfall.

The neigbouring Mali has deposited 212 samples of maize and Nigeria, 200 samples of okra and peppers.

Tanzania is depositing over 100 samples of vegetables and other crops, filling a critical gap.

According to Crop Trust, less than 10% of accessions conserved in genebanks are of the more than 1,100 vegetable species around the world. There's an urgent need to rescue and conserve vegetable diversity to address malnutrition.

Morocco is depositing 2,292 samples of chickpea, barley and lentils, while two genebanks from Zambia have deposited a total of 825 samples of vegetables, millet, sorghum, maize, vigna beans, groundnut and pigeon peas.

Ethiopia has also deposited some1,750 seed samples.

Sudan prepared hundreds of samples of sorghum and pearl millet seeds despite war raging in the country and lack of access to the main national genebank in Wad Medani. The samples are expected to be dried and catalogued in readiness for the final transfer to Svalbard in February 2025.

According to Crop Trust, seeds seeds can die even in genebanks, if they are not taken care of.

"No seed lasts forever. A genebank’s role is to make sure this diversty is safe and alive and made available to users," Communications Manager Salazar says.

However, the backing up of seed collections is, presently, "the exception, rather than the rule," he reckons.

"This is due to lack of resources. Most genebanks have enough funds to simply keep the light on and pay for the cold rooms to stay viable."

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault built providing free service for seedbanks worldwide, is the "future of Agriculture" according to Haga.

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