Enviro News Asia,Svalbard — The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has opened its doors for the second time this year, adding more than 15,000 new seed samples to bring its total collection past 1.4 million samples, each preserved as a safeguard for the future of food and humanity.
The June deposit marked the 70th since the vault’s opening in 2008, bringing the total number of seed samples stored at the world’s largest secure seed-storage facility to 1,401,285. Altogether, 15,387 seed samples from 11 genebanks were deposited for long-term safeguarding.
The June deposit featured nearly twice as many samples as the previous February deposit and showcases a global assortment of crop diversity, with thousands of seed samples from genebanks across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia now secured on the facility’s icy shelves deep in the Arctic.
Burkina Faso and Niger joined as first-time depositors, with support from the Benefit Sharing Fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Plant Treaty), underscoring the vault’s growing role as a truly global safety net for agricultural biodiversity. (*)
