How the Arctic tundra is keeping seeds safe for future generations

How do we make sure we can keep growing our most popular fruits and vegetables far into the future? 

Climate change has been affecting farms for years, with floods washing away crops, unpredictable weather wiping out harvests and drought killing whole yields.

Seed banks are a clever way to make sure that thousands – sometimes millions – of fruit and vegetable varieties don’t go extinct despite these threats.  

Food varieties globally are on the decline

Tucked up 1,300 km beyond the Arctic Circle lies the world’s largest secure seed storage, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which first opened in 2008. This sits proudly in a massive former coal mine, as Euronews Green has previously reported. 

The huge vault, among cold and dry rock permafrost, now holds thousands of varieties of essential food crops, including beans, wheat, and rice. Right now, there are over 1,331,458 samples of 6,297 crop species.

Around 75 per cent of our global domestic vegetable varieties have been permanently lost since the 1900s because of monoculture farming, according to the FAO. This popular farming technique is when farmers grow just one crop species in a field at a time. 

Seed banks like Svalbard try to stop any more seed varieties from being lost forever.

Svalbard received more newcomer seeds in 2024 than ever before

Genebanks – items that preserve and store genetic material, such as seeds, tissues, or DNA samples – are sent from all over the world to Svalbard in a bid to keep native – and sometimes ancient – crop varieties alive. 

“During 2024, 61 seed genebanks deposited 64,331 seed samples, including 21 from institutes that deposited seeds for the first time this year,”  says Åsmund Asdal, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault coordinator.

“These are the highest numbers of depositing genebanks and the highest number of newcomers in the history of the Seed Vault.”

While countries may have their own national or even regional seed banks, it’s crucial, like any important data, to have a ‘backup’. For genebanks, this is Svalbard, where the Arctic tundra makes for an ideal and secure climate for storage.

“Plant diversity is probably the most crucial resource for securing future food supplies, including in a changing climate,” explains Asdal. “Genetic diversity is conserved in seed banks that then back up their collections in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.” 

“Farmers, plant breeders, scientists and we as consumers must rely on the availability of these seeds,” says Asdal. 

What’s the link between seed banks and food security?

While it’s difficult to predict the future, it could be that a particular seed variety from one part of Europe or even further afield thrives in another – so this collection has huge power for ensuring food security.

“No country or continent is self-sufficient in plant genetic diversity,” says Asdal. Conserving and using seeds is, by nature, international, and the effectiveness of joint efforts to secure future food supplies is highly dependent on efficient international cooperation,” adds Asdal. 

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But how does this cooperation play out in our uncertain times? 

According to Asdal, “Luckily, despite political disputes in a troubled world, cooperation on conserving seeds in the Seed Vault in Svalbard is not influenced by sanctions or political conflicts.”