Boxes of African seeds being loaded onto a van on the way to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The shipment was prepared by staff of IITA's Genetic Resources Unit. Photo by O Adebayo, IITA.

In June 2009, we shipped the second batch of African seeds to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The delivery is a follow up to our shipment of seeds last year at the commissioning of the “Doomsday Vault”.

Our 2009 shipment included about 5000 seed samples of soybean, maize, bambara nut, cowpea, and African yam bean, packed in more than 10 seed boxes. The shipment was prepared by the Genetic Resources Center (GRC) located at headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria.

We were the first international agricultural research institute to send seeds to the Vault. Our initial consignment sent on 30 January 2008 comprised of 21 boxes filled with 7000 unique seed samples of crops from more than 36 African nations.

Between 2008 and 2009, we have shipped 11,414 accessions of different African food crops to the seed vault, representing 54% of the conserved seed germplasm at the GRC. These shipments to Svalbard are part of our ongoing commitment to safeguard Africa’s agrobiodiversity for the future of humanity.

According to the UN Environment Program’s 4th Global Environment Outlook report, the ongoing loss of biodiversity will restrict future development options for rich and poor countries with negative impacts on food security.

To help stem the loss of agrobiodiversity, the GRC has over the years conserved more than 28,000 accessions of key food crops in sub-Saharan Africa. The GRC also houses the world’s largest collection of cowpea—a key staple in Africa and offering an inexpensive source of protein— with about 15,000 varieties from 88 countries, mostly from Africa.

We are also continuously working to expand our germplasm collection. This year, we acquired 402 accessions of yam from Benin, Togo, and Ghana. We have also collected 73 local cassava germplasm from Guinea Conakry, and acquired 48 accessions of coco yam from Ghana. These newly acquired germplasm are presently in screen houses and will be characterized in 2010.