Securing the foundation of our food supply at -18° Celsius

Longyearbyen, Svalbard, 6-7 June 2023 - The Svalbard Global Seed Vault welcomes 40.507 new seed samples from nine genebank depositors, including collections from Latvia, Morocco, Taiwan, USA, Netherlands, Israel, Poland, Zambia, and Italy.

2023 marks the 15th anniversary of the Vault and with the new deposits from 9 institutions, including international, regional and national genebanks, as well as smaller collection holders, we see the collection surpass 1.25 million seed samples.

The Institute of Biosciences and BioResources from Italy is depositing seeds for the first time and is the 99^th gene bank who has signed up to use the Seed Vault as a security deposit for their seed samples.

“We are happy to back up our oldest collection, dating from our first collecting missions in the 1970s, where many of these accessions have since become extinct. Safeguarding agro-biodiversity is of fundamental importance for the future of humanity, which depends on agriculture and food. Preserving and making seeds available to scientists and breeders is an increasingly important and urgent need.” says Gaetano Laghetti of the Institute of Biosciences and BioResources, Italy.

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Securing the foundation of our food supply at -18° Celsius - Svalbard Global S...

by: Gabriele Bucci - Last Updated: Jun 16, 2023 (16:16)