Buried seed vault guards thousands of crop varieties
Buried deep in a mountainside located in a group of islands nearly (620 miles) off the northern Norwegian coast lies a vault charged with the task of safeguarding nearly from around the globe. It might sound like something out of a movie, but this seed preservation bunker is very much a real-life agricultural security project.
is located near the village of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, a far-northern location that exists in total darkness for nearly four months out of the year. The vault serves as backup to living crop-diversity collections housed in 鈥済ene banks鈥� around the world and is designed to protect seed varieties from both natural and man-made disasters.
, executive director of the , explains that the seeds that the vault receives are crucial to preservation of global crop diversity: 鈥淥ur crop diversity is constantly under threat, from dramatic dangers such as fires, political unrest, war, and tornadoes, as well as the mundane, such as failing refrigeration systems and budget cuts.
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"But these seeds are the future of our food supply, as they carry genetic treasures such as heat resistance, drought tolerance, or disease and pest resistance.鈥�
The vault currently secures over , which are kept frozen by layers of permafrost and thick rock that insulate the vault and keep its inner temperature far below freezing, even in the absence of electricity. Its initial construction was funded entirely by the Norwegian government, but it is now maintained through a partnership between the Norwegian government, , and the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
In late February and early March, a total of arrived at the vault, just in time for celebration of its fourth birthday. Three particularly interesting and celebrated arrivals included wheat from a remote region of Tajikistan, amaranth that was once cultivated by the Aztecs, and barley that is now being used to brew beer in the American Pacific Northwest.
The originated in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan, one of the highest mountain ranges on the planet. The region, fraught with hot summers and frigid, snowy winters, harbors an impressive variety of wheat, much of which is especially interesting to scientists as they search for a variety that is resistant to a powerful strain of wheat stem rust that has been known to devastate crop yields.
The , sent by the (NPGS), was first cultivated by the Aztecs and Incas 8,000 years ago, and its seeds were once eaten as a nutritious grain by these ancient cultures. Amaranth has recently been 鈥渞ediscovered鈥� as a high-protein, gluten-free alternative to wheat and has once again risen to popularity as a result.
Some of the varieties sent to Svalbard were also once used for healing and medicinal purposes, and today the red pigment in amaranth stems gives a rich red color to colada morada, a traditional South American beverage drunk in Ecuador during its annual Day of the Dead observance.
failing refrigeration systems and budget cuts.
Another contribution by the NPGS included several subspecies of that were first imported to the United States in 1938. These grains are modern varieties of 鈥淏etzes鈥� barley, an old German variety that was grown in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and is now the ancestor of 18 modern varieties growing in the region, including the malting barley known as 鈥淜lages,鈥� a favorite in America鈥檚 expanding craft beer movement.
Although the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is sometimes referred to as the 鈥溾�� because of its role in protecting global agriculture systems from natural or man-made disasters, the part it plays in protecting global seed diversity is important even today. Seed banks have already been destroyed in the conflict there, and another was looted during the uprising in Egypt last year.
It is important to examine and preserve as many varieties of seeds as possible because even those that may not seem important now could turn out to be a to survival in years to come. Some varieties that were first collected in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, have recently been found to have very high flood or drought tolerance, rendering them incredibly valuable as climate change increases the frequency and severity of each of these extremes.
鈥� Eleanor Fausold is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.
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