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Norway gives new inside look at world’s biggest seed vault

The Local Norway
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Norway gives new inside look at world’s biggest seed vault
Screenshot: Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food

New video from the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture tells the story of what has been called Norway’s “gift to the world”.

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Opened by the Norwegian government in February 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the largest of its kind in the world, storing more than 860,000 seed samples from a total of 64 seed banks around the world and representing approximately 40 percent of the genetic diversity in the world's seed banks.
 
Located some 1,300 kilometres above the Arctic Circle and built deep into the mountainside, the vault protects the future food supply by housing duplicates of the living crop diversity collections kept in “gene banks” around the world. 
 
Åsmund Asdal of Svalbard Global Seed Vault has previously called the vault “one of the wonders of the world.” 
 
"It's a great thing for Norway to be able to send back seeds to seed banks that are no longer working. We have built this seed vault, in one way, it is our gift to the world,” Asdal told VG in September. 
 
This week, as the vault celebrated its eighth year in existence, the Norwegian government released a new video giving an inside look into the workings of the vault:
 
 
 
 

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