Scientists in the Middle East have requested some 116,000 samples from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, an international safeguard for the world’s food supply against global catastrophe, on Sept. 23, 2015. The researchers are requesting drought-resistant crop seeds: wheat, barley, and a variety of grasses.
The request was made by the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), an organization originally based in Aleppo, Syria. With the outbreak of the civil war, ICARDA was forced to move its operations to Lebanon in 2012 to escape the conflict. Due to the quick and violent nature of their departure, the researchers were unable to bring their seed supplies, prompting the request for withdrawal. While the seeds from the facility in Aleppo are safely housed in cold storage, the organization has been unable to access them due to damage to the surrounding buildings caused by the war. The Global Seed Vault is built out of a shutdown coalmine and was funded entirely by the Norwegian government. It’s located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. In many ways, the vault functions as a deep-cold storage unit for biodiversity. It houses about 4,000 species of seed samples, with a total sample count of over 840,000. All of these samples are duplicates—backups—of seed samples from the world’s crop collections. Samples are donated from all over the world and any nation or organization is free to make a deposit or, in times of need, make a withdrawal. Due to its location within arctic permafrost boundaries, the vault could remain frozen and sealed for over 200 years without power. Its location is considered geographically ideal due to the region’s extremely low tectonic activity; natural disaster is unlikely to affect the vault. However, the crisis in Syria is requiring the first ever withdrawal since the vault’s opening seven years ago.
ICARDA has asked to withdraw 130 of the 325 boxes that they dropped off at the vault before the outbreak of the war. The organization that runs the Svalbard vault has said that the request will be carried out as soon as the paperwork is completed.
While the phrase “withdrawal from doomsday vault” sounds dire, it truly is not. Essentially, the Svalbard system was created for precisely such a scenario. By pre-emptively storing copies of their samples—thus backing-up their collection—in the vault several years ago, ICARDA has ensured that the civil war will not become a mass extinction for the many ancient varieties of drought resistant crops they once cared for in Aleppo. The scientists at ICARDA will grow crops in Lebanon and Morocco and once the organization has enough of a species to grow and share its seeds, they will replenish the stock at Svalbard.
The work done by ICARDA is of particular importance. They are devoted to developing drought-resistant plants and crops. They hope to help alleviate poverty and world hunger by researching and distributing crops better-suited for growing in arid climates. With one-third of the global population living in arid regions, their work could potentially benefit billions.
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