14,000+ Crop Seeds Added to Svalbard Global Seed Vault for Preservation

More than 14,000 seed samples are headed for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault this week, where they’ll be preserved and protected against climate change, war, and other events that can threaten crops and plant diversity.

The latest addition of 14,022 seed samples come from 21 different genebanks around the world, and the latest deposit will include thousands of samples from countries facing conflict and extreme weather events that can threaten seed genebanks.

Sudan, which is currently undergoing a civil war, deposited 15 samples, including different varieties of sorghum and pearl millet. The deposit will help protect Sudan’s crops, as an ongoing civil war led to the looting and destruction of the country’s seedbank, with more than 17,000 seeds affected. This is the sixth deposit to Svalbard’s Seed Vault by Sudan, which first started depositing seeds here in 2019.

“In Sudan, where conflict has displaced more than eight million people and disrupted agriculture, these seeds represent hope,” said Ali Babikar, director of Sudan’s Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Conservation and Research Centre (APGRC). “By safeguarding this diversity in Svalbard, we’re preserving options for a resilient, food-secure future, regardless of the challenges we face.” 

The Philippines also made an important deposit to the seed bank to protect its diverse crops from extreme weather events that threaten the country. According to the WorldRiskIndex report, the Philippines ranks No. 1 globally for countries at the highest risk from extreme natural disasters and has previously had its national genebank damaged by typhoons and fires. Climate change has exacerbated these threats. 

As such, the Philippines is making a contribution of important seeds such as eggplant, rice bean, lima bean and sorghum for protection at Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

“In the face of climate change, which we are already feeling with all the extreme weather conditions in the Philippines, it becomes more pressing to duplicate these collections in other gene banks like Svalbard to safeguard [them],” Hidelisa de Chavez, a researcher at the University of the Philippines’ National Plant Genetic Resources Laboratory, told Grist. 

Brazil, which will host COP30 in Belém this year, also made a major contribution of more than 3,000 types of beans, rice and maize. 

Another critical deposit included Mucuna pruriens, or velvet beans, in Malawi’s deposit of legumes, rice, maize, sorghum and other crops. The velvet bean doubles as a nitrogen-fixing fertilizer that can boost maize yields and is popular for medicinal purposes.

“Crop diversity reduces the risk of food crises at local, regional, sub-regional and global levels,” Nolipher Mponya, an agricultural research scientist who works for the government of Malawi, said in a statement. “By conserving crop diversity, we are protecting the future of our foods. We are also maintaining the genes for crop improvement, feed and habitat for pollinators and ensuring the direct and indirect health and economic benefits from these crops.”

This round of deposits also included contributions from Benin, Burundi, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Nigeria, Zambia/Zimbabwe, Cote d’Ivoire, Georgia, Kenya, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Thailand and UA Emirates. 

Seeds at the vault are kept inside custom packages, sealed within boxes and kept at low temperature and moisture levels to prevent damage, even if there’s a power outage. The vault helps maintain backup seeds for countries that may be impacted by climate change, conflict or other disasters that could threaten genebanks.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault’s first deposit of 2025 is its 66th since it began accepting deposits in 2008. It typically collects deposits three times per year (February, June and October) and stores more than 1.3 million seed samples. It is owned by Norway and managed by Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the regional NordGen genebank and the international nonprofit Crop Trust. The latest round of deposits was also supported by Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods, and Development (BOLD).

“The seeds deposited this week represent not just biodiversity, but also the knowledge, culture and resilience of the communities that steward them,” said Stefan Schmitz, executive director of Crop Trust. “We must find a way to protect this crop diversity for generations to come.”