The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a type of insurance policy we humans have in case of a big emergency that would wipe out most of the agricultural industry and crops in the world. It is often referred to as a doomsday vault, which is in fact pretty accurate, because its purpose it to allow us to go and get back important crop seeds after a potential doomsday scenario.
The entrance to the seed vault. Image by Frode Ramone, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
The vault itself is located on the Norwegian island Spitsbergen (called Svalbard in Norwegian), close to Longyearbyen, just over 1,300 kilometers away from the magnetic north pole. This seed vault is one of the largest in the world, but it is far from the only one, and there are currently over 70 other genetic seed banks like this one in other parts of the world.
Physically it just looks like a big metal bar that sticks out of the snow, as you can see from the image above. However, behind this is a 120 long tunnel that leads into the mountain! At the end there is a big space with lots of containers for long-term containment of biological samples, with the possibility of storing up to 4.5 million seeds in total.
The tunnels leading into the seed vault. Image by Johan Bäckman, posted as Public Domain.
Water leakage and repair
I actually wrote a post about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault 8 months ago because water had been leaking into the facility, potentially causing damage to the seeds that were stored there. What happened was that permafrost outside the vault had melted due to increasing temperatures in the area, and some of this seeped into the vault tunnel itself. Luckily no seeds were damaged, but it’s pretty ironic that a vault designed to survive a doomsday scenario did not manage to stay dry during some ice melting. I guess the designers did not take the global warming into account.
This incident has led to a discussion if the seed vault should be upgraded, and the Norwegian government has proposed to spend 100 million crowns to upgrade it. This is almost 13 million USD, so we are talking about a lot of money, but who can put a price on saving the agricultural industry from a doomsday scenario?
While it might sound crazy to invest such a high sum into upgrading the seed vault, it is important to remember that this does serve a very needed function. If most of our crops were to be lost due to war, a natural disaster or another big disaster, then getting back our good crops is next to impossible. It has taken many, many years of selective breeding on the crops to increase their yield, growth-time, and resistance to pests and disease, so this has a potentially huge value if something happens.
What it actually looks like where the seeds are stored. Image by Dag Terje Filip Endresen, posted as Public Domain.
Returning seeds to Syria
As we all know, Syria is currently facing a huge crisis with lots of armed conflict. This led to many crops being lost, and species that was adapted to being grown in the Syrian regions were lost. Luckily these crops were backed up at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and the seed vault returned 130 boxes of seeds with over 115,000 seed samples. This allowed farmers in the region to regrow the local crops again, which is obviously better than importing crops from another region.
Hitting the one million seed milestone!
What I wanted to share with you guys today is that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault hit two major milestones at the same time; it officially celebrated its 10-year anniversary, and hit the magic number of 1,000,000 seeds in the vault, with the exact number being 1,059,646.
As I mentioned earlier, there is room for a total of 4.5 million seeds, so it can still house over 3 million more, so hopefully different organizations will keep collecting important seeds to send away for long-term storage.
Congratulations to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault for hitting these two milestones!
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading my post about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and the milestones it recently hit. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new.
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It is a good idea to store seeds in a safe vault but I donot believe that these vaults are really safe if they can not bear global warming issue, like you mentioned Permafrost melting. This remember me the story of Titanic. It was claimed that Titanic is such a master piece it will never sink. On the first visit the ship was sunk. So in my honest opinion it is not a good idea to spend 13 million USD for the storage of seed vault. May be Norwegian government easily bear the huge expanses but being the inhabitant of third world country where people donot have basic facility can afford such vault. Any way collecting 1.0 million seed is a big achievement. All the best for more collection. Thanks for sharing
I've heard about this vault before and I even remember a travel show featuring someone famous visiting it, it's bugging me that I can't remember who.
However, I got a nice little consolation prize while trying to google who it was. There's an interactive 360 degree virtual tour of the vault!
You probably know by know that I've got an ecological bent, so you can imagine that I'm all in favor of this and the other vaults and am a little envious that you live in a country enlightened enough to make sure it gets the funding it needs.
As an aside, I first found out about Svalbard itself years ago from a video game (whose name I also can't recall, grrr!) where you had to balance the ecology by manipulating populations of krill, jellyfish, sea lions, polar bears, puffins, etc.
That virtual tour is really cool! It definitely seems smaller than I imagined it when I read about it.
The ironic part of it all is that the only reason why the Norwegian government can afford this is because we keep pumping oil up from the ocean..
That sounds like a cool game! Svalbard is a really interesting island, and I hope to be able to visit it myself at one point. It's pretty far away from mainland Noway, so it's not all that accessible to us, and we need weapon training and stuff like that if we want to go outside on Svalbard, due to the polar bears in the area.
wow, they have more seeds than I expected, and yes, it is funny that a little permafrost melting destroyed the integrity of the seed doomsday bunker. lol.
As far as I knew, there was only one location that stored seeds like this, correct? I honestly believe that these need to be all over the world in case of something happening with transportation making it difficult to get them back to other countries.
There are over 70 different seed vaults spread across the globe. Granted, most are not really built to withstand a doomsday scenario, but they are still useful for regional conflicts such as wars and other things that ruin the crops in an entire region.
We should probably have a few more ready for doomsday scenario as well. I have no idea how people are even going to get to Svalbard in the event of a doomsday scenario :P It's very difficult to get to this place, so just imagine how we would get there without planes and vehicles.
Great post. This project needs much more publicity because it is not only important but an achievement in how far we have come in agraculture. Not only can we prepare for doomsday scenarios but we can possibly prevent the extinction of various species and carry-on on the legacy of regions ruined by disaster, climate change and human meddling.
Yeah, it has some great purposes besides a doomsday scenario.
Why do you think so? It's certainly well-known from the perspective of scientific institutions, and most universities that offer some agricultural degree has already deposited the seeds from their region. I mean, it's great that people know about it, but I don't really think it needs a PR campaign.
Not so much a PR campaign but just a general awareness. People are woefully uninformed about these types of projects. This one in particular case actually interests people and they have no idea. I just think there is no harm in getting news out about projects that benefit the species cross culturally. Everyone seems to agree for once on this idea and that good will can foster further global projects.
Happy birthay..but i think that Monsanto is trying to make these seeds against the law to use. It reminds me of Pearl Harbor. All of the valuable and vulnerable stock was conveniently placed in one place, which facilitated and maximized the damage.
Perhaps we should house the seeds in various, suitable locations around the globe and stick all of the Monsanto share holders in this vault, close the door, and loose the keys.
Wow, that's just crazy. I get that corporations want to make money, but this is not a great way to do it..
Anyway, as I mentioned in the post, there are over 70 different seed banks like this one, so it won't be a huge disaster if a few of them were to be attacked.
Yes, really congratulations to Svalbard Global Seed Vault to achieving two milestones simultaneously. And as per future aspect regarding any disaster, this is an great project because we don't know what will happen in future so samples of current cropping seeds an amazing idea. And in my opinion the greatest thing this organisation has done is sending the seeds to Syria to rebuild the local farming because they really need it. I want to appreciate this project and in future we can come up with some similar concepts for other fields. Thanks for sharing and wishing you an great day. 🙂
Stay Blessed.
Yeah, it is always nice to have insurance policies, especially for things that are as important as the agricultural industry. I'm also really glad that they are able to help out Syria with giving them back their crops again, and I hope the war will be finished there soon!
Thanks for the comment! :) Have a great day yourself.
Welcome and thank you. 🙂
Hey great content as always @valth The Svalbardglobal seed vault has intrieged me since it opened ten years ago, the returning of seeds back to Syria highlights the global need for such a bank.
Im trying to comprehend over a million seeds let alone four and a half million thats some capacity! Im wondering obviously it would be a wild guess but how many seeds does the World have in total ? Food for thought....... 😊
Thanks!
Yeah, 4.5 million seeds is a lot, but I guess you can cram a lot of seeds into a 1mx50cmx50cm box.
Hehe, that's a good question. I have no idea, and I don't think anyone knows for sure at all.
I belong to a country who is getting most of the part of his income from agriculture,
I'm talking about "PAKISTAN".
Agriculture is very important,
What do we need to live?
That fucking food we are getting from this agriculture industry?
Why not invest in it?
" I guess the designers did not take the global warming into account."
They Should have had taken this into account.
But now we can't reverse it, but we can get it to a better one.
Yeah, it's a great investment. Also, it's free for countries to keep a backup of their seeds there, so there is nothing to loose for governments and universities to gather their seeds and store it :)
yeah, Exactly
Your writing about nature science and species of the world really impressed me. I think this is a writing struggle for you to protect them. the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has touched two mile stone. This is a revolutionary change.
Thanks :)
Preparing for armageddon are we???
The biggest threat to human race and this world is Human race itself...
Perhaps if we had put aside our differences and overcame the insatiable greed, there may be no need for places like these...
In case of a natural event, I doubt even the securest vaults like these can survive...
Consider the case of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, all the safety measures and redundancies were top notch but in the end everything proved insufficient in countering the forces of nature.
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TrufflePigits great to see. i am very much excited to visit this place and it is very much hopeful and thanks time that some body is planning in such a great manner.i never thought of this.Humans are putting their best.waow seed vault.it is very much new for me.
now i have joined this outstanding valth community dear.thanks for sharing.sharing is caring.i am looking forward for your awesome post and resteeming this one for the moment.
Thanks, @unkabird :) I'm glad to have you here.
Good post my friend,l like your post.plees visit my blog my friend
Thanks.
Great post dear
Thanks..
So who actually owns the seed vault and manages it? Is it Governed by a Global corporation?
I'm glad you liked that part :)