60,000 Seed Samples Safeguarded in Svalbard

Record Deposits in 2024 Safeguard Global Crop Diversity

The Seed Vault operates as a partnership among the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) and the Crop Trust. It can hold more than four million seed samples.

The February 2024 deposit featured 23 depositors – half from Africa – and added almost 14,000 seed samples to what is now the world’s largest collection of crop diversity in a single location. Nine genebanks sent seeds for the first time, including depositors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria and Zambia.

In May, a total of 20,720 seed samples from 15 genebanks were added to the Seed Vault. Five new depositors delivered shipments from Armenia, Benin, Indonesia and Malaysia. This second opening of the year included seeds from Indonesia’s Borneo Institute, which sent rice varieties of great cultural significance to Borneo’s Dayak people in their batch of 294 seed samples of rice, cowpea, eggplant and maize. 

The last opening of the year in October featured more than 30,000 new seed samples from 23 depositors across 21 countries, including seven international genebanks. This was the largest number of depositors since the Seed Vault received samples from a record-setting 35 genebanks in 2020. The deposit included first-time contributions from Bangladesh, Bolivia, Chad, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Suriname.

Many of the new depositors were able to back up their seeds due to support by the BOLD project, funded by the Government of Norway. With this activity in 2024, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault now houses over 1.3 million seed samples of over 6,000 species from 123 depositors.