Ghana Genebank Becomes 100th Depositor to Safeguard Food Crops in the Seed Vault
Seed boxes delivered to Svalbard Global Seed Vault. (Photo: Jonatan Jacobson, NordGen)
24 October 2023
Today, Ghana becomes the 100th depositor to deposit seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, an important step towards ensuring the long-term protection of the country’s major food crops. Ghana joins 15 other institutions, including one other first-time depositor – the Bonn University Botanic Gardens (Germany) – in safeguarding duplicates of their seed collections inside the Vault.
Nestled in an Arctic mountain on the remote island of Spitsbergen, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault safeguards over 1.2 million seed samples, making it the world’s largest collection of crop diversity at a single location. For 15 years, the Seed Vault has welcomed genebanks from across the world to conserve copies of their seed diversity. Following this latest deposit, the Seed Vault now holds ‘copies’ of seeds safeguarded in genebanks located in 74 countries. This diversity is needed to adapt agrifood systems to a rapidly changing climate and other environmental challenges.