The storage
The Seed Vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million varieties of crops. Each packet of seeds consists of an average of 500 seeds, so a maximum of 2.5 billion seeds may be stored in the Seed Vault.
As of May 2024, the Seed Vault holds more than 1.3 million seed varieties originating from almost every country in the world. These range from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea and sorghum to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley and potato. The Seed Vault already holds the most diverse collection of food crop seeds in the world.
The Seed Vault's objective is to safeguard as much of the world’s unique crop genetic material as possible while also avoiding unnecessary duplication. It will take some years to assemble because some genebanks need to multiply the stock of seed first, and other seeds need to be regenerated before they can be shipped to Svalbard.
For a complete overview of the samples stored in the Seed Vault,
