The Doomsday Vault, located deep in the Arctic, received 60,000 new seed samples on Tuesday, boosting agricultural supplies in the event of a global disaster.
Growing concerns about climate change and loss of species are prompting groups around the world to add their seeds to a collection inside a mountain near Longyearbyen on Svalbard Island in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, about 1,300 kilometers from the North Pole.
The Doomsday Vault of food crops is designed to preserve plants that can feed the population in the face of climate change.
“As the rate of climate change and biodiversity loss accelerates, there is a new urgency for efforts to conserve endangered food crops,” said Stefan Schmitz, the reserve manager as head of the Trust Fund.
“The large volume of seed stocks today reflects global concerns about the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.”
Lise Likke Steffensen, head of the Nordic genetic bank, said each seed in the vault “contains potential solutions for sustainable agriculture.”
“Solutions that are vital to feed people and achieve green energy,” she added.
A total of 36 regional and international agencies contributed to the 60,000 samples that were deposited on Tuesday.
Newcomers include staple crops such as wheat and rice, as well as wild varieties of European apple trees.
The seeds also include beans, gourd and corn from the Cherokee people – the first Native American group to send crops to storage – including their sacred eagle corn.
As a result of the latest delivery, the number of seed varieties stored in three underground niches at an optimum temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius will reach 1.05 million.
The seed bank can hold up to 4.5 million samples.
Sources: Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB Scanpix / AFP
