Did you know? There is an Arctic Seeds which holds emergency grains of the world!

Which means that even if all the crops get destroyed tomorrow and we have nothing to eat, we can still start all over again with the sample seeds stored in there. This vault contains seeds from around 73 institutions around the world which are stored in a room measuring 12m X 27m (around 40 feet). But this is also suffering climatic pressures of it's own.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which turned 10 on Monday, holds nearly one million seed samples from the world’s gene banks – an agricultural back-up in the event of disasters ranging from nuclear war to climate change. The vault holds the key to 12,000 years of agriculture but also to food supplies for future generations, with countries urged to deposit seed samples there.



Climate pressures
The Svalbard archipelago, the furthest north reachable on a scheduled flight, was chosen for the vault’s location because it is remote, there are no volcanoes or earthquakes, and the permafrost keeps the seeds in deep-freeze. Yet the vault, built 120 metres (400 feet) into the rock, is facing its own climate pressures. An unexpected thaw of permafrost meant water flowed into the entrance of the vault’s tunnel in late 2016. 

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