‘Doomsday’ seed vault to be opened for Syria to replant its crops

THE ‘doomsday vault’ stores seeds that can be re-used to start crops in the event of a major world cataclysm. But one nation’s looming food crisis has prompted an early withdrawal.

‘Doomsday vault’ to be opened

IT’S intended to be the ultimate insurance deposit: a library of hundreds of thousands of seeds buried among the permafrost in case of some cataclysmic event affecting the world’s food supplies.

For civil-war wracked Syria, that time is now.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was established on an island amid the Arctic wilderness of northern Norway in 2008. Among its goals were to preserve genetic diversity as the world’s food crops become increasingly commercial, as well as provide a stockpile of viable seeds for emergency replantings.

On ice ... Boxes of seeds being deposited in the Svalbard global seed bank at Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Source: Supplied

It has been designed in such a way that, if the power was to fail, the seeds would remain frozen and sealed for up to 200 years.

According to an Aljazeera report, Syria’s own government seed bank — near the besieged city of Aleppo — has been damaged in the fighting between government forces, separatists and Islamic State.

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Much of its vital seed stocks were damaged or destroyed, and the agricultural researchers have since retreated to Beirut.

It’s not quite the scale — nuclear war, asteroid strike, global pandemic — that the vault was intended for.

Insurance scheme ... Artistic illustration of the Seed Vault. Source: Supplied

Nevertheless, the Middle East’s need for wheat, barley and bean varieties suited to its parched climate is at a crisis point. And Syria’s seed bank can no longer grow and distribute enough to meet demand.

So Syria’s International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas has formally requested the return of 130 out of 325 boxes of seeds it had previously deposited in the vault.

A spokeswoman for Norway’s Agriculture Ministry says it is the first withdrawal made from the vault.