05/10/2021

Rome, Italy, October 2021– Crop collection holders in low- and middle-income countries can take advantage of a new funding opportunity to support the duplication and safeguarding of their collections in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Genebanks all over the world currently maintain approximately 7.4 million samples of crop diversity. However, many of these samples are at risk, because genebanks lack reliable funding and human resources to properly carry out regeneration and multiplication. Duplicating and backing up unique seed samples in other locations is necessary to safeguard them from accidental loss in genebanks or in farmers’ fields. This grant, the first of its kind, addresses these needs. Collection holders are encouraged to apply by 31 October 2021.

The Call for Proposals and all relevant information are available at: https://www.croptrust.org/svalbard-grant-call-for-proposals/

A unique opportunity to safeguard diverse seed collections

The Global Crop Diversity Trust has just launched the call for proposals together with partners that include the Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, NordGen and Norwegian Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The grant is made possible under the newly announced Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development (BOLD) project, a 10-year effort funded by the Government of Norway and led by the Crop Trust.

“This grant offers an opportunity to Contracting Parties, international institutions and other relevant eligible bodies and organizations to make use of the Seed Vault as part of their strategy to secure their important seed collections, as well as for long-term storage of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, as called for in Resolution 12/2019 of the Governing Body” said Kent Nnadozie, Secretary of the International Treaty.

One interesting feature of the Call is that it highly encourages applications by collection holders that are currently under-represented among depositors to the Seed Vault, such as universities and community seed banks.  

“This is good news indeed, as it facilitates connecting this funding opportunity to others available through the Funding Strategy of the Treaty. To give an example, over the past years, some of the Benefit-sharing Fund projects have successfully duplicated and deposited  a back-up of their collections at Svalbard. For example the 324 types of rice varieties earlier this year, that for a large part were collected in a project funded in Mali. Likewise, at the end of October and under the umbrella of this project, the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Serbia will deposit a range of local wheat varieties that have important nutritional value and climate resilient traits.”