New Indonesian seeds were added to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which raised the total number of seed samples to 1.29 million. In total seed samples from 15 gene banks were added, including two gene banks in Benin and one seed bank in Armenia also deposited seeds at the same time. In total 20,683 seeds were added to the vault.
It was the first time that the specific Indonesian bank deposited seeds, and Indonesia had contributed for the very first time in February of this year. The vault has only been opened at these two occasions this year.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is operated by the non-profit organization Crop Trust in collaboration with Norwegian authorities. The vault aims at preserving the genetic diversity of food crops from all across the world. It is the biggest seed vault in the world.
The vault has a capacity of 4.5 million distinct seed varieties and can accomodate duplicates of every seed variant stored in global gene banks. It was established in 2008 with the goal of safeguarding agricultural and industrial crops against war, terrorism, natural disasters and other threats. For this reason the vault also has the nickname “doomsday” vault.
Source: Indonesianews.net
