Posted on December, 4, 2024 at 07:17 am
Amid reports of food insecurity driven by conflict and climate change across Africa, several African countries have indicated that they will be depositing various seed varieties in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault this week.
Often called the “Doomsday Vault”, the genebank deep in the Arctic safeguards the genetic diversity of the world’s food supply.
Sudan, despite a raging war, has assembled and shipped samples of pearl millet and sorghum this month, said Lynda Mwakisha from Crop Trust, an international organisation working to conserve crop diversity and thus protect global food and nutrition security.
Genebank staff assembled the seeds to the national genebank in Wad Medani. Security trucks transported the seeds to Port Sudan for outward shipment. They will be deposited in Svalbard early next year.
Chad, a new-comer to the Seed Vault, will be depositing 1,145 samples of sesame, rice, maize and sorghum. This contribution is particularly significant, as these crop varieties are adapted to Chad’s harsh climate and therefore crucial for developing crops that can withstand increasing temperatures and erratic rainfall, said Crop Trust.
The World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) genebank in Tanzania is depositing over 100 accessions of vegetables and other crops, filling a critical gap. Less than 10 per cent of accessions conserved in genebanks are of the more than 1,100 vegetable species around the world.
Growing more vegetables, especially in Africa, also means more jobs and resilient farms. “The WorldVeg genebank in Tanzania has a direct line to farmers, who — through seed kits containing a variety of vegetable seeds, including leafy amaranth and okra — grow and sell these crops to supermarkets,” said Maarten van Zonneveld, Head of Genetic Resources at WorldVeg.
Finger millet, chickpea and beans coming from Africa will also be deposited in the vault, Mwakisha said.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault recently received a deposit of more than 30,000 new seed samples from 23 depositors across 21 countries, including seven international genebanks, according to Mwakisha.
This marks the largest number of depositors since the Seed Vault received samples from a record-breaking 35 genebanks in 2020, underscoring the urgent global effort to conserve crop diversity in the face of escalating climate change, conflict and other crises.
The deposit includes first-time contributions from Bangladesh, Bolivia, Chad, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Suriname, she added.
The Crop Trust is providing financial and technical support to these and other countries to help them preserve their collections. The support is made possible by financial contributions from Norway as part of the ‘Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development’ (BOLD) project.
It is a 10-year project to strengthen food and nutrition security worldwide by supporting the conservation and use of crop diversity. The project works with national genebanks, pre-breeding and seed system partners globally. It is led by the Crop Trust in partnership with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the International Plant Treaty.
"Climate change and conflict threaten infrastructure and impact food security for over 700 million people in more than 75 countries worldwide. Genebanks are ramping up efforts to back-up seed collections, and we are proud to support them by providing a safe haven in Svalbard,” said Stefan Schmitz, executive director of the Crop Trust.
Recent climate data underscores the urgency of the work. Also, yields of the main cereals in sub-Saharan Africa are less than half of the world average.
This highlights the pressing need to conserve, explore and use the diversity of both forgotten crops and of the better-known staples found in the world’s genebanks.
Crop Trust said that many of the seeds in this deposit represent “opportunity crops” — those that can thrive in challenging conditions and have untapped potential to improve food security, nutrition and resilience to climate change.
Due to changing trends in food and agriculture, many of these crops have been left out of peoples’ meals and policymakers’ agendas, according to Crop Trust. These include crops like okra, millets and pigeon pea.
Source: Down to Earth