An Australian farmer has just deposited hundreds of seeds in an Arctic vault for preservation.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, known as the Doomsday Vault, is located about 12,000 kilometres from the North Pole in Arctic Norway.
Photo: Mari Tefre/Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Built into solid rock 60 metres above sea level, in a permanent perma frost, which means the temperature will never rise above -20 degrees C, in an earthquake free zone patrolled by polar bears, the Global Seed Vault has been described as the safest place on Earth. A great article from ABC Radio Austrlaia.
There is also Audio in the article as well, it’s just below the picture, they talk about the Aussie seeds going into the vault. It is all very interesting, of course there will be seeds from all over the world going into the vault.
There are many seed banks around the world, but if you believe the experts there are none that are as secure as this one, because the vault does not have to rely on electricity to keep everything frozen, no worry’s about equipment failure. The main reason for this seed vault is they believe that we are continuing to lose our crop diversity, also if there is some sort of catastrophe we will still have crops to plant.
Drawing: Global Crop Diversity Trust
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Construction of the seed vault, which cost approximately 45 million Norwegian Kroner (9 million USD), was funded entirely by the Government of Norway. Storage of seeds in the seed vault is free of charge. Operational costs will be paid by Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. The primary funding of the Trust came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, Switzerland, and Sweden, though funding has been received from a wide variety of sources including four developing countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, and India. Wikipidia.
Magsx2's Blog 
There was something on TV only the other day, about such a seed bank in Surrey … something to do with the Royal Horticultural Society, I think; didn’t pay all that much attention, as I was preparing dinner at the time.
Anyway, they were saying they’d grown a strain of Banksia that hitherto has grown only in some parts of Australia & needs a bush fire to make it set seed.
I’ll let you know if I hear any more.
Hi travelrat,
Sounds very interesting, this also happens to me at times, something really intriguing or interesting finally comes on the TV and by the time your finished whatever your doing it is all over never to be heard again. 🙂
Yeah, but!
If seeds arent grown for too long they go bad. They would need to be planted, grown and new seeds stored every so often. If people were wiped out the seeds would go bad long before anyone could recover and plant them again
Hi kymbo,
What you say is correct, but they have worked around that problem.
From Wiki:-
The storage rooms are kept at −18 °C (−0 °F). The low temperature and limited access to oxygen will ensure low metabolic activity and delay seed aging.
Sounds like a “good news” story to me, Mags. If all the “genetically-modified” seeds go pear-shaped, there’s a reserve of original seeds to fall back on. Cheers.
Hi Mal,
Yes I agree, putting this vault in the Arctic I think is one of the best ideas the powers that be have come up with, and allowing countries to put in the seeds without any charge, I was really surprised at that one.
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