Norway funds secure seed bank

By Lennart Simonsson Jun 19, 2006, 14:45 GMT

Oslo - An Arctic island off northern Norway has been selected as the site of a secure vault to store millions of seeds needed to maintain global crop diversity in case of major calamity.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, accompanied by government leaders from the other Nordic countries, presided at a groundbreaking ceremony Monday.

'Svalbard is the perfect place, probably the best place in the world,' said Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, by telephone from Longyearbyen, the main settlement on Svalbard.

'The seed vault is a safety net for existing vaults around the world,' added Fowler, who led a group that charted suitable sites.

The Norwegian government has contributed 30 million kroner (4.8 million dollars) for the construction of the vault, a veritable Fort Knox for seeds.

Blasted into solid rock in a mountainside, construction of the 5- metre high, 5-metre wide and 50-metre long vault was scheduled to be completed by September 2007. The vault would be lined with a metre of concrete to provide additional insulation.

Although Svalbard is located just 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole, it offers daily flights.

'It is far away from the troubles of the world, offers good infrastructure and has its own energy supply, and the geological conditions are perfect,' Fowler said about the choice of Svalbard.

The Arctic temperatures and permafrost were ideal for storing seeds for a long time. The seeds would be stored at -20 degrees Celsius. Should the power fail, the permafrost should keep temperatures below freezing.

The Nordic countries and several African nations have for some years stored seeds in a disused coal mine on Svalbard. The Nordic Gene Bank, created 1979, stores some 30,000 varieties of seeds typical for the region.

The new vault would serve as a backup for seeds from existing crop seed banks, for instance for rice in the Philippines or maize in Mexico.

'The international centres would send a copy of what they have,' Fowler said, noting that the rice bank in the Philippines has some 90,000 kinds of the some 100,000 known rice varieties.

There was definitely a need for so many varieties, Fowler said, noting that they were all different and had different characteristics.

'We don't know what the future will bring,' he said but noted that future challenges included the evolvement of new pests and diseases.

Water shortage was another challenge that the diversity of seeds could help tackle. 'A comparison would be that we don't go burning books we have not read.'

The Svalbard vault could house some 3 million different varieties of seeds, 'about twice as much as what exists' but that gives a margin for new varieties, Fowler said.

Diversity can be threatened by natural disasters, war, and lack of funding can also lead to the disappearance of seeds in current banks, meaning irrevocable loss.

Although the sparsely populated Svalbard has a sizeable number of polar bears, security measures would be more state of the art and include remote-controlled sensors, perimeter fencing and reinforced doors.

The vault would likely be accessed only a few times a year, mainly when new samples would be stored on the shelves lining the vault.

Operational costs of some 100,000 dollars a year would be covered by the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, Fowler said.

The two-year-old foundation is raising funds to assist developing countries to multiply and ship seeds to the vault where they are stored in vacuum-sealed aluminium bags packed in special boxes. Donors include Norway, Sweden and Germany.