Seeds from two new countries, Guatemala and Niger, were deposited for the first time, and the Seed Vault received its first-ever deposit of olive seeds. In total, 7,864 seed samples from 10 depositors arrived for long-term safeguarding in the Arctic facility.

This 69th deposit brings the total of seed samples secured in the Seed Vault to 1,386,102. Located under permafrost deep inside a rocky mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the facility is managed by the Norwegian Government, the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) and the Crop Trust.

The deposit brought together a mix of national genebanks, international research centres and community-linked collections. Seeds now backed up include:

  • Cereals and legumes that are staples for millions of people across Africa
  • Vegetables central to diets and nutrition worldwide
  • Traditional crops and an ancestor of maize from local Indigenous farmers in Guatemala
  • Olives, a crop whose fruit and oil have global nutritional, gastronomic, cultural and economic significance

The the Olive Genebank of the University of Córdoba, part of the International Olive Council’s network of genebanks, brought olive seeds to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault for the first time.

The deposit included wild olive seeds from Spain and seeds representing the 50 most important cultivated olive varieties worldwide. Bringing these seeds to Svalbard was a key outcome of GEN4OLIVE, a European research project led by the University of Córdoba. Guatemala’s national genebank, managed by the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología Agrícolas (ICTA), deposited 950 samples from 10 species. 

The seeds come partly from traditional maize and bean varieties that have been preserved and further developed by the local farmers’ organization ASOCUCH.

The Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food is the legal and administrative body of the Seed Vault and has the overall responsibility for its management, security and funding. The Ministry has assigned Statsbygg, the key adviser on construction and property to the Norwegian Government to be responsible for the construction and maintenance of the Seed Vault. For more information see www.regjeringen.no

NordGen is the Nordic countries’ genebank and knowledge centre for genetic resources. As the operational manager of the Seed Vault, NordGen is responsible for handling the seeds inside the Seed Vault; communicating with genebanks, and maintaining a publicly accessible online database with information on the seed samples stored in the Seed Vault (seedvault.nordgen.org). Read more about NordGen at www.nordgen.org

The Crop Trust is an international organization working to conserve crop diversity and thus protect global food and nutrition security. At the core of Crop Trust is an endowment fund dedicated to providing guaranteed long-term financial support to key genebanks worldwide. The Crop Trust supports the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and coordinates large-scale projects worldwide to secure crop diversity and make it available for use, globally forever and for the benefit of everyone. The Crop Trust is recognized as an essential element of the funding strategy of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Learn more at www.croptrust.org