Today, there are about 1,400 seed banks around the world. These keep seed varieties from all continents safe in the event of a large scale global crisis, such as a famine. One of the largest seed banks lies inside a mountain on Norway’s island of Spitsbergen, just 1,300 kilometers from the North Pole. This is a backup for all the world’s other seed banks.
In 1996, director Cary Fowler commented that the seed bank’s opening “marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity. “Billions of seeds are now kept there. They are stored in a permanently chilled, earthquake-free zone 120 meters above sea level. This should allow the seeds to remain high and dry, even if the polar ice caps melt.