“We need diversity to create something new,” Axel Diederichsen, a researcher for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, who works at Canada’s plant gene bank, in Saskatoon. Preserving living crop genotypes in gene banks means plant breeders can tap into that diversity to create new, resilient crops. When a small number of crop genotypes dominate globally, that makes our food supply more vulnerable to disease and disaster. The researchers also pointed to a lack of genetic diversity within individual crops for example, in North America, just six individual corn genotypes make up over half of all corn crops. A 2019 University of Toronto study found just four crops - soybeans, wheat, rice and corn - occupy nearly half of the world’s agricultural lands. Together, these facilities contain about 7.4 million types of germ plasm, according to the UN’s food and agriculture agency.Īround the world, crop diversity is decreasing, as food production converges around a globalized diet. About 1,750 gene banks scattered across the globe hold the genetic codes to the world’s crops, both past and present, in the form of seeds or other plant tissues called germ plasm.
The Global Seed Vault, which is operated by the Norwegian government and a German nonprofit called the Crop Trust, is part of a broader network for seed storage. But the shimmering exterior, dressed in a design of steel and mirror shards by Norwegian artist Dyveke Sanne, hints at the magic that lies inside. The vault is closed to the public, and its doors are only opened a few times a year to make way for new seeds. The seeds live in a chilled room, carved more than 100 metres into the rock, through a long tunnel and behind a large steel door that keeps out unwanted visitors. For three months of the year, the vault resides in complete darkness, after the sun sets for the Arctic’s long polar night. The vault sits just outside Longyearbyen, up the hill from the world’s northernmost commercial airport. Still, since it was built in 2008, the vault has acted as something of an insurance policy for Earth’s biodiversity, a role of increasing importance in a world ravaged by political instability, war and the urgent threat of climate change.Īt 78 degrees N, about 1,000 kilometres away from the North Pole, you’d be hard pressed to find a more remote (yet still accessible) place to safeguard the world’s seeds.
“It’s just seed storage inside the mountain,” says Åsmund Asdal, the vault’s co-ordinator and only full-time employee. But at its core, the vault’s mission is quite simple. The concrete structure jutting out of the hillside is built to withstand the most severe natural disasters, and even a nuclear bomb, according to its manufacturer. But deep within its permafrost - layers of soil, gravel and sand, frozen in place - lay the keys to securing the world’s food supply, in the form of more than one million types of seeds.ĭubbed the “doomsday vault,” the Global Seed Vault has a certain sci-fi quality to it. In the icy tundra of Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost town, few crops grow. Here on Norway’s wild and vast Svalbard archipelago, polar bears outnumber people - and you can never be too careful (though of course, killing one is strictly a last resort). LONGYEARBYEN, Norway-You’ll need to carry a rifle if you wish to visit the world’s biggest collection of agricultural diversity.
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