"Treasures" in the Arctic help protect food for future generations.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds 1,417,799 seed samples, by its own count. In 2026 it received the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation.

Vietnam Television (VTV), in a report republished by Vietnam.vn, draws on an interview that Lene Krøl Andersen gave to Africanews. She leads the Nordic Gene Resource Centre (NordGen). She said climate change is among the reasons the vault was set up, and that pressure on biodiversity is growing. If plant genetic resources are not kept in time, traits useful for breeding varieties suited to future climates could disappear.

Andersen compared gene banks to libraries: each sample holds genetic information that scientists and breeders can use. The Svalbard task, she said, is to keep the originals as close to their first state as possible. Research and plant development are done by scientists and breeding facilities.

She described the vault as a backup. If a national gene bank loses or damages a collection, the owner can restore it from copies stored elsewhere, Svalbard included. Depositors keep the right to take their seeds back.

In the deposit of 13 October, NordGen reported, 21 gene banks in Asia, South America, Europe and Africa sent over 16,000 samples. Ukraine contributed 773 of them, covering sunflower, cereals, buckwheat and forage crops. It is the first Ukrainian deposit since 2012.

Fighting since 2022 has damaged Ukraine's gene bank infrastructure. The Crop Trust and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, along with NordGen, have coordinated support for protecting its collections. Oleksiy Gavrysh, Ukraine's ambassador to Norway, said these resources belong to the country's national heritage and have strategic value for agriculture.

For Africa, Andersen named okra and long beans as examples of varieties that farmers in many countries have grown, selected and kept for generations. She added that Svalbard does not replace national and regional gene banks. Those institutions handle research, assessment of seed traits and contact with farmers, whose knowledge helps identify which varieties suit local conditions.

Coverage: Vietnam News Portal, Svalbard Global Seed Vault