Seeds Added to Svabard Global Seed Vault - Twig Science Reporter

Episode

03/27/2025

14,000 new seed samples added to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, protecting food crops for the future.

Transcript

Behind this door lies the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. This facility, deep within a mountainside on the Arctic island Svalbard stores seed samples from around the world.

These seeds are a backup, protecting food crops for the future. If a country loses an important crop because of a natural disaster, war, or other emergency, they can use the seeds in Svalbard to grow that crop again.

Last month, another fourteen thousand samples were added to the seed vault, including varieties of sorghum and millet from Sudan, rice from Thailand, and velvet beans from Malawi.

This brings the total number of seeds to over 1.2 million and there’s room for millions more, allowing the Global Seed Vault to store as many crops as possible, in case we ever need them.

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Seeds Added to Global Seed Vault

Teaching overview

Learning points

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault stores samples of crops from around the world.
If an important crop variety is lost due to natural disaster, war, or other emergency, these seeds can be used to grow the crop again.
Another 14,000 seed samples have been added this year, including crops from Sudan, Thailand, and Malawi.

Curriculum keywords

agriculture
seeds
Svalbard

Spark a discussion

What is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault?
How does the Global Seed Vault protect different varieties of crops for the future?
What are some examples of seed samples added to the Global Seed Vault in 2025?

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