Morocco placed more than 1,100 seed samples in Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault, nicknamed the Doomsday Vault, the world’s largest secure seed-storage facility, in June to help safeguard crop diversity against climate change, natural disasters, and war.
Since opening in 2008, the vault has stored more than 1.4 million seed samples from over 80 countries. Its latest, 70th deposit added 15,387 new samples from 11 genebanks.
According to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault website, Morocco’s International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) deposited around 1,172 seed samples during the latest intake.
The deposit consisted of four boxes containing seeds from 30 crop species, including 302 chickpea samples, 268 lentil samples, and a range of cereal crops.
The move highlights Morocco’s growing role in global food security and the conservation of plant genetic resources for dryland regions.
Other deposits included 660 seed samples from the Netherlands, 1,000 from Poland, 6,000 from South Korea, and 4,602 from the United Kingdom.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault said the June deposit included nearly twice as many seed samples as the February intake, highlighting the wide range of crop diversity preserved at the facility.
It also said that Burkina Faso and Niger became first-time depositors, with support from the Benefit-sharing Fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
In February, Morocco reportedly deposited around 1,164 seed accessions in three boxes, including wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, and triticale.
The deposit also included indigenous barley landraces through the Rabat-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), with support from the Benefit-sharing Fund of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
The Seed Vault receives deposits three times a year, usually in February, June, and October, backing up genebank collections from around the world.
Seeds are sealed in airtight packages and stored at −18°C deep inside an Arctic mountain, where natural permafrost and thick rock help preserve them for the long term even without power.
The move came as the United Nations forecasts the global population will reach around 9.7 billion by 2050, with changing weather patterns posing growing challenges for agriculture and food production.
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