as a result of natural disasters, war or simply a lack of resources, the seed collections may be reestablished using seeds from Svalbard. Now that the Seed Vault has opened, its main work will be receiving, recording and storing the seeds that are being sent to Svalbard for safe keeping by gene banks around the world. Many of these collections are from developing countries. This represents just a small fraction of the eventual capacity of the vault that could easily hold more than 2 billion seeds. In all, the shipments of seeds secured in the vault today weighed an approximately astonishing 10 tons, filling 676 boxes. Each sample may contain hundreds of seeds or more. With the deposits ranging from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley, and potato, the first deposits into the seed vault represent the most comprehensive and diverse collection of food crop seeds being held anywhere in the world.īuilt near the village of Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen, the vault at its inception contains 268,000 distinct samples of seeds - each one originating from a different farm or field in the world. Genebank staff checking accession number as they are packed in shipment box at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria (IITA). All depend on crops and the genetic diversity within these crops from other countries and regions.” The future of agriculture depends on international cooperation and on the open exchange of the crops and their genes that farmers all over the world have developed and exchanged over 10,000 years. They are the raw material that farmers and plant breeders use to improve the quality and productivity of our crops. The importance of preserving seeds is stated in the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) description of its purpose: “Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture are crucial in feeding the world's population. The Vault, designed to store duplicates of seeds from seed collections, sent seeds from 20 different research institutes and national gene collections. Some 268,000 seed samples that represent the agriculture of 220 countries have already been catalogued, coded and moved into the Vault. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault established in the permafrost in the mountains of Svalbard opened on Februon a remote island in the Arctic Circle, receiving inaugural shipments of 100 million seeds that originated in over 100 countries. Built near the village of Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen, the vault at its inception contains 268,000 distinct samples of seeds - each one originating from a different farm or field in the world.
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