LONDON (Reuters) – The war in Ukraine, the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter, threatens the destruction of the National Plant Gene Bank, which holds a priceless treasure trove of seeds of rare and ancient varieties.
According to Crop Trust, a non-profit organization set up by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), this doomsday scenario was highlighted earlier this month when a research center near of this “central bank” of seeds, in Kharkiv, was damaged.
Reuters was unable to determine the cause of the damage and Crop Trust said only that the research center was hit. The organization declined to give further details, citing security reasons.
Only 4% of the seeds would have been preserved.
These seed “banks” are essential for researchers to create plants that can withstand climate change or disease, as well as to ensure sufficient food production.
“It would be a tragic loss if Ukraine’s seed bank were destroyed,” Stefan Schmitz, executive director of Crop Trust, told Reuters.
The director of the Ukrainian seed bank could not be reached, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine declined to comment, and the Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
THE SYRIAN PRECEDENT
During the war in Syria, the world reserve of Svalbard, located on the Norwegian archipelago of the same name, was able to preserve or duplicate the destroyed seeds.
This underground “vault”, the largest in the world, in 2015 provided replacement samples of cereals suitable for dry regions to researchers in Lebanon after the destruction of a seed bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo.
In total, Svalbard keeps more than one million seed samples and among them, 4% of the 150,000 Ukrainian seeds representing more than 1,800 crops.
An emergency measure for Ukraine would be to forego seed duplication and ship supplies to Svalbard, a mission that may not be possible in times of war, says the Crop Trust director.
Norway’s agriculture ministry chief adviser Grethe Helene Evjen says the ministry is ready to help Ukraine duplicate and store all its seeds in Svalbard, but says it hasn’t received a request yet. Ukrainian authorities.
(Report Maytaal Angel in London, with the contribution of Victoria Klesty in Oslo; French version Diana Mandiá)