Photo credit: NordGen via Regjeringen.no Excerpt from regjeringen.no
Eighteen genebanks representing every continent deposited more than 18,000 seed samples to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault this week. Among them were new contributors from the Philippines and Peru, safeguarding crops that embody generations of farmers’ knowledge and culture.
"Now - 130 gene banks in almost 90 countries, have added an additional level of security for their seed collections. I recognize all the efforts of the gene banks in sowing and preparing the seeds for shipping to the Arctic”, says Nils Kristen Sandtrøen, Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food.
The largest backup repository of crop diversity welcomed seeds of dietary staples such as Filipino rice and Peruvian chili peppers, as well as cultural icons like Ecuador’s chocho bean and Moroccan lavender. It received a major deposit from the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) genebank in Tanzania, which sent the largest-ever deposit of traditional African vegetable seeds to the Seed Vault.