The 'Doomsday' seed vault is growing

“We’re seeing in several of the soybean varieties intriguing traits that could allow farmers to confront such problems as drought or extreme heat, shorter or longer growing seasons, or higher levels of CO2,” said Dave Ellis, curator at the USDA-ARS National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation.

The Center also sent along samples of semi-dwarf wheat and rice from the early 1960s, varieties that helped provide the genetic foundation for the Green Revolution credited with saving millions from starvation.

Another shipment brought to the vault contains over 400 samples from the Seed Savers Exchange in the US, an Iowa-based non-profit group that is preserving rare garden species, many of them brought to North America by immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Included in the shipment are seeds for the German Pink tomato, a rare variety transported to Iowa in 1883 by a Bavarian immigrant who is the grandfather of one of the co-founders of the Seed Savers Exchange. German Pink is a large, hardy sweet-flavoured tomato.

Like all seeds coming to the vault, the samples are duplicates of seeds from other collections and are being sent to Svalbard for safekeeping, not for everyday use. It is important to understand that the material directly acquired by plant breeders to develop disease-resistant and “climate-ready” crops, and to meet the challenge of rapidly growing populations, is maintained by national and regional crop genebanks. Many of these genebanks are threatened by neglect and lack of funds.

Svalbard is a fail-safe backup to be used whenever a depositing seed bank loses part or all of its collection, but we should focus equally on averting the disasters in the first place. Crop genebanks are our first and best line of defence, yet something as mundane as a poorly functioning freezer could ruin a collection that 10 years from now could be critical to averting a food crisis.

We are eager to see the success of the vault encourage broader interest in preserving the crop diversity stored in genebanks around the world and expanding these collections to include the wild relatives of domesticated crops, which themselves are being lost to environmental degradation and climate change.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault (www.seedvault.no)

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is designed to store duplicates of seeds from seed collections from around the globe. If seeds are lost, e.g. as a result of natural disasters, war or simply a lack of resources, the seed collections may be re-established using seeds from Svalbard. The seed vault is owned by the Norwegian government which has also financed the construction work, costing nearly NOK 50 million.

The Global Crop Diversity Trust (www.croptrust.org)

The mission of the Trust is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide. Although crop diversity is fundamental to fighting hunger and to the very future of agriculture, funding is unreliable and diversity is being lost. The Trust is the only organisation working worldwide to solve this problem. The Trust is providing support for the ongoing operations of the seed vault, as well as organising and funding the preparation and shipment of seeds from developing countries to the facility.