Seed Summit: Need for safeguarding crop diversity

The Seed Summit was organised by the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Nordic Genetic Resource Center and Crop Trust on the occasion of the seed deposit at the Seed Vault on the same day. The Summit entitled "Genetic diversity for more resilient food systems" looked at the urgent need of safeguarding crop diversity due to the impact of climate changes on food production. Representatives of genebanks from around the world who came to make seed deposits in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault participated in the 2020 Svalbard Seed Summit. After the Summit, 35 institutions deposited 65,119 accessions in 188 boxes into the Seed Vault. This brings the total to 1,050,000 accessions in the Seed Vault, which is the largest safety backup of the world’s crop diversity. The summary of the presentations are available in the article.