The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the world’s largest collection of agricultural biodiversity. It serves as a secure storage for duplicates of seeds conserved in gene banks around the world. The Seed Vault has more than 1 million seed samples. The samples are genetic material the world needs to develop and grow plants to secure food supply.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has chosen Piql’s unique data storage technology to archive information about seeds deposited in the vault. The data will be stored on the immutable and long-term storage medium, piqlFilm, together with the seeds.

“Almost as important as the seed itself, is knowing what kind of seed it is, and what properties it has. Such information is currently stored in databases. These systems are vulnerable, and there is a risk of losing information as seeds are to be preserved for many decades, perhaps several hundred years. Therefore, we have signed an agreement with Piql to securely store important information about the seeds on piqlFilm”

Åsmund Asdal, Coordinator, Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Piql’s Managing Director, Rune Bjerkestrand, is proud that the Seed Vault has chosen Piql for this important preservation initiative.

“This agreement with is perfectly in line with our vision - we work every day on creating sustainable innovations with our technology to help secure data and give eternal life to information. Storing seed data is an important mission, and we’re happy and proud to contribute with our technology to this global project.”

Rune Bjerkestrand, Managing Director, Piql

The project will start in Longyearbyen, Svalbard on February 13th with representatives from NordGen, who are responsible for management of the Seed Vault and CropTrust, funder and important partner in the establishment of the Seed Vault present.

About the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

• The Seed Vault is located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago on 78 degrees north.
• It has the capacity to store 4.5 million varieties of crops.
• Currently, it holds more than 1,000,000 seed samples from almost every country in the world.
• The focus of the Seed Vault is to safely store as much of the world’s unique crop genetic material as possible without unnecessary duplication.
• A temperature of -18ºC is required for optimal storage. Low temperature and moisture levels ensure low metabolic activity, keeping the seeds viable for long periods.
• A few kilometer away from the Seed Vault, carved into the same mountain above Longyearbyen airport, lies the Arctic World Archive (AWA) run by Piql. AWA is a repository in growth stored with world memories and holds an impressive collection of valuable digital artifacts and irreplaceable information.
• The Seed Vault was in many ways the inspiration for AWA as both vaults are built to stand the test of time deep in the Svalbard permafrost.

Source: croptrust.org and arcticworldarchive.org