A special vault storing the world's most precious seeds has now amassed one million different plant varieties. It recently took delivery a consignment seeds from 70,000 different crops. Global Seed Vault is buried deep an icy mountain the Arctic Circle area Svalbard, Norway. It was started ten years ago to safeguard the future the world's food supply. Climate change is causing more and more droughts the world, which are threatening different species plants. The vault holds back-ups of seed samples stored other seed banks around the world. Hannes Dempewolf, a senior scientist the Crop Trust, said: "Hitting the million mark is really significant."
Workers the vault were not sure they would reach the million mark so soon. The crisis Syria meant there was a shortfall 90,000 seeds the vault. The latest delivery to the vault included cereal staples. There were also more unusual crops the onion potato from Estonia and the Bambara groundnut, which is being developed a drought tolerant crop in Africa. Marie Haga, executive director the Crop Trust, spoke about the importance of the vault. She said: "Safeguarding such a huge range seeds means scientists will have the best chance developing nutritious and climate-resilient crops that can ensure future generations don't just survive, but thrive."
