In 2020, The Svalbard Global Seed Vault Welcomed Record Number of Depositors

(February 10, 2021) - After the completion of the technical upgrade of the Seed Vault in late 2019, new and old depositing genebanks participated in a major seed deposit in February 2020. The event welcomed participants from five continents, including representatives from 35 genebanks.

In the Seed Vault Seed Summit in February 2020, the participating scientists and policy makers discussed: genetic diversity for more resilient food system and the co-chairs of the UN SDG Advocates, the Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, and the President of Ghana, Nada Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, signed the Arctic Call to Action for Food Security and Climate Change. The call urges countries to make use of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault as part of their strategy for securing their important seed collections.

In 2020, 82,501 new seed samples were safeguarded at Svalbard, resulting in a total number of 1,074,533 seed samples in the Seed Vault by the end of 2020. More details to be find in the 2020 annual brief.

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