Global seed vault marks 1-year anniversary with 4-ton shipment of critical food crops

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/bc-gsv022309.php

Public release date: 26-Feb-2009

Contact: Megan Dold
[e-mail]
301-652-1558
http://www.croptrust.org/main/">Global Crop Diversity Trust

Global seed vault marks 1-year anniversary with 4-ton shipment of critical food crops

With new evidence warning climate change threatens food production, scientists gather in Svalbard to discuss crop diversity and the vault's role in averting agricultural disaster

LONGYEARBYEN, NORWAY (26 February 2009)—Four tons of seeds - almost 90,000 samples of hundreds of crop species - from food crop collections maintained by Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, USA, and three international agricultural research centers in Syria, Mexico and Colombia, were delivered today to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault as it celebrated its one-year anniversary. The repository, located near the village of Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, has in one year amassed a collection of more than 400,000 unique seed samples – some 200 million seeds.

"We are especially proud to see such a large number of countries work quickly to provide samples from their collections for safekeeping in the vault," said Norwegian Agriculture Minister Lars Peder Brekk. "It shows that there are situations in the world today capable of transcending politics and inspiring a strong unity of purpose among a diverse community of nations."

"The vault was opened last year to ensure that one day all of humanity's existing food crop varieties would be safely protected from any threat to agricultural production, natural or man made. It's amazing how far we have come toward accomplishing that goal," said Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which operates the seed vault in partnership with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center in Sweden.

For example, in its first year of operation, the vault at Svalbard has so far received duplicates of nearly half of the crop samples maintained by the genebanks of the international agricultural research centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

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[trotsky]

1. This is such a great project.

It could very well save our species - or many other species - at some point in the future.