March 6, 2020

Last week, on February 24, the 1 millionth variety of seed was added to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault located on Spitsbergen, an island off the coast of Norway. The facility was designed as a “doomsday vault” to store seeds from millions of plants, including nearly all the world’s food crops. These seeds may be needed in the future to reestablish crops destroyed by major disasters.

Snowy hills surround the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Norway’s Spitsbergen Island. credit: Mari Tefre, Svalbard Global Seed Vault

The newest additions that put the vault over the million mark included samples of beans, corn, and squash from India, Mali, Peru, and the Cherokee Nation in the United States. The new contributions also included clover, grass, and herb seeds from the United Kingdom’s Kew Gardens.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the largest seed storage facility in the world. The vault can hold up to 4.5 million seed samples from wild and domesticated plants.. Many of the seeds come from crop varieties that are not widely grown, as well as from staple food crops. The genetic diversity in the stored seeds may help scientists develop new crop varieties that can thrive in climates and soil conditions different from those that exist today. The Svalbard facility opened in 2008.

Seeds are stored in boxes in the cold, dry environment of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. credit: © Mari Tefre, Svalbard Global Seed Vault

The plan for a doomsday vault originated with the United Nations International Seed Treaty of 2001. The site at Spitsbergen was chosen because it is an unlikely place for a disaster to occur. The site is remote, largely uninhabited, geologically stable, and naturally cold. The seed vault was built in an abandoned coal mine about 490 feet (150 meters) deep in the side of a mountain. The vault lies within permafrost, a layer of earth that remains frozen the year around. The vault is kept at a temperature of –0.4 ºF (–18 ºC). The low temperature keeps the seeds viable—that is, able to germinate under proper conditions—for long periods.

There are many smaller seed vaults in other parts of the world. Such facilities, often called gene banks, help preserve genetic diversity in food crops. The Svalbard facility serves as a global reserve gene bank. In 2015, researchers removed some seeds from the Svalbard vault for the first time. They used some of the seeds to replenish the supply at a gene bank in Aleppo, Syria. Some of that gene bank’s seeds had been lost during Syria’s ongoing civil war.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is owned and administered by the government of Norway. Daily operations are overseen by the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre, a Scandinavian organization dedicated to the sustainable use of plants, farm animals, and forests. Sustainability is the ability of an activity or way of life to continue over the long term without exhausting resources, damaging the environment, or harming people. The Crop Trust, established by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, helps fund the operation of the seed vault. The seeds stored at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault are owned by the gene banks that have deposited them there.

July 31, 2013

Weeks of spring and summer rains across the southeast United States have severely affected crops dependent on hot summer sun. Peaches are tasteless; tomatoes are splitting; and watermelons are rotting on the vine. Watermelon farmers in southern Georgia believe that at least half of their crop is lost. In North Carolina, rain delayed spring planting of the peanut crop, which agronomists say will undoubtedly result in lower yields.

While rainfall across the contiguous 48 states is only about 6 percent above normal for this time of year, the Southeast has been swamped. According to the National Climatic Data Center, rainfall in Georgia through June was 34 percent above normal; North Carolina and South Carolina were 25 percent above normal; and Alabama was 22 percent above normal. By contrast, the region was abnormally dry or in drought at this time last year.

Weeks of rainstorms have severely affected crops across the Southest. (© Marco Alegria, Shutterstock)

State officials in the Southeast predict agricultural losses will mount into the billions of dollars this year. In some areas, water is standing in cornfields, and mold is growing on the stunted ears of corn. Tomato fields are being hit by late blight, a fungus-like pathogen. Pecan farmers fear that a rain-related fungus, scab disease, will cut crop yields by as much as 15 million pounds (6.8 million kilograms). This year’s Georgia beach crop is essentially lost because the rain has diluted the sugar content of the fruit. “The flavor is just not there,” one farmer told The New York Times. “It’s like having a mouthful of cotton.”

On top of compromising quality and fostering disease, the rains have left the ground so wet that farmers may be unable to get equipment into the fields to harvest. Climatologist Jake Crouch, with at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, is not hopeful about a drier late summer and fall. “Whenever we get in a pattern like this, we kind of stay in the status quo,” Crouch reported to the Times. “When we’re hot and dry, we stay hot and dry. When we’re wet, we stay wet.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Agriculture
• Climate
• Weather
• Agriculture 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• When the Rain Stops (a special report)