Photo: The entrance to the Svalbard Global
Seed Vault, the
world's Most diverse repository of crop seeds. Photo
by Mari Tefre/Svalbard Global Seed Vault (enlarge
photo) The Svalbard
Global Seed Vault is the ultimate security net for
the world's crop diversity. The Seed Vault aims at safeguarding
the world’s most important plant genetic resources for food
and agriculture with a maximum level of security.
Genetic diversity is vital for solving
the challenges to agriculture which climate change will cause.
It is only through using this diversity that scientists can
breed new varieties of our crops, able to thrive in dramatically
different conditions expected in the future.
This diversity is stored in seeds, and seeds
from all continents are now stored in the Svalbard Global
Seed Vault, says Roland von Bothmer, professor of genetics
and plant-breeding at the Swedish University of Agricultural
Sciences, and part of the team responsible for running the
Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
The Seed Vault offers free-of-charge back-up
for the seed collections held in seed banks around the world.
Information on the seeds held in the Vault, and how deposits
can be made, is available at the vault website
.
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