Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Inside a mountain in the far north, between Norway and the North Pole, lies Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Why you ask? The world we live in today has a lot of challenges, from natural disasters to those created by man, from climate changes, population growth, wars and every possible disaster you can think of. It’s very important to secure the world’s food supply.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault has millions of seed. In fact, inside, there’s every important crop variety now available in the world. These seed back-ups have an ideal location. Svalbard is not easily accessible, humidity levels are low and since the vault is above sea level, it’s well protected from flooding. Also, because of natural freezing, it’s a cost-effective way to preserve the seeds.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault stores a variety of world’s crops.

The capacity of the sea vault is 4.5 million varieties of crops and currently there are more than 860,000 samples. As for the collection, it includes crops from all over the world. They are stored and sealed in custom made three-ply foil packages and held on -18ºC, which is the ideal temperature for optimal storage. Currently, it’s prohibited to store genetically modified seeds in the vault.

If this sounds interesting to you, you can take the interactive visit to the vault here.