Additionally, the Svalbard vault opens for new deposits only a few times a year, so shipping logistics need to match up those dates. For starters, seed must be sent in the winter to avoid it sitting on hot airport tarmacs. Preparing and shipping the seed involves intricate coordination and painstaking work. “We send seeds every other year, accumulating packets until we have a critical mass and sending them in a large, single shipment,” Payne said. CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank, led by Denise Costich, has already reached that goal. The target is to have 90 percent of the CIMMYT entire collection backed up at Svalbard within two years, according to Thomas Payne, head of CIMMYT’s Wheat Germplasm Bank, which is located in Mexico. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the top contributor to the vault, with over 150,000 unique collections containing a total of nearly 50 million seeds and representing roughly 85 percent of the entire CIMMYT germplasm bank collection. Over the last decade, seed-preserving institutions worldwide have shipped backup collections of seed and other plant parts for storage in the vault, which now holds nearly 900,000 varieties of essential crops, representing over 4,000 plant species, which could be drawn upon to restart agriculture in case of a catastrophe. Repurposing an abandoned coal mine, the global seed vault is set deep into the natural permafrost of the Norwegian island of Svalbard. It is described as the world’s largest secure seed storage and was established by the Norwegian Government in February 2008. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault sits 1,300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle the farthest north commercial flights will take you. To celebrate, leaders in the conservation of crop genetic resources are gathering next week to discuss best practices and to encourage sustainable use of the resources. Photo: CIMMYT archivesĮL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) - The “Doomsday Vault,” that safeguards fall-back collections of key food crop seeds in the arctic cold of Longyearbyen, Norway, marks its tenth anniversary this year. “They’ll be safe no matter what happens in terms of climate change.CIMMYT’s Maize Germplasm Bank has its entire collection backed up in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. “This is the safest place on Earth for these seeds,” says Cierra Martin, a spokeswoman for the vault. Will that be enough to protect the seeds of 900,000 different plants, trees, fruits and vegetables? All the seeds remained dry and undamaged, but to keep the facility functioning properly in a warming world, it’s slated to receive a $4.4 million upgrade.Īrchitects and engineers are now working on waterproofing the vault’s walls and digging ditches to help water drain. But last fall, higher-than-average temperatures that scientists linked to climate change melted some of that permafrost, and water seeped into the vault’s entrance. The soil in Svalbard-located about 800 miles from the North Pole-is permafrost that has always stayed frozen year round and was expected to help preserve the seeds in their underground storage containers.

Completed in 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault-also known as the “Doomsday Vault”-is intended to protect Earth’s food supply in the event of a global disaster by safeguarding hundreds of millions of seeds from all over the world. It might look like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s actually the entrance to a giant vault located in Svalbard, Norway, that could one day save humanity.

Government doomsday vault