Why India needs a new doomsday seed vault

Think of it as a Noah’s Ark. Only, instead of animals, this is a vault to preserve India’s food diversity — the country’s agricultural produce, the gift of the land.With 4,89,102 germplasm accessions (see graphic below) conserved in its cavernous interiors, Delhi’s National Genebank is the second-largest in the world in terms of samples of diverse plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, after a similar facility in China.And now, the country is taking its ﬁrst steps towards building a second genebank — because two, obviously, are better than just one.Seed Of An IdeaIndia — which has more than 160 crops, 320 wild relative species and thousands of unique ‘landraces’ (local cultivars that evolved over centuries) — is recognised as one of the world’s richest centres of biodiversity, particularly its agricultural produce.But crops are extremely prone to the whims of both man and nature: natural disasters, man-made calamities, genetic erosion, climate change, replacement with new high-yielding varieties, or devastating wars — you name it, and a crop variant may be lost forever.This is not a long shot, by any means. As recently as 1999, there was signiﬁcant damage to plant germplasm and biodiversity, caused by the devastating supercyclone that struck the Odisha coast in October. The central government had established the National Genebank in 1976 under ICAR National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR). There was just one objective: to store genes of indigenous plants — in the form of seeds or other propagules — to safeguard the country’s food security.This helped re-introduce many local traditional varieties in the country’s coastal region in the east (through whatever scientists had saved in the genebank), while also preserving many varieties that had already all but disappeared from many parts of the country over the past several years.Currently, National Genebank, to which TOI was given access, conserves as many as 4,71,810 accessions of 2,115 plant species in its seed genebank; 15,248 accessions of 782 species in a cryo genebank and 2,044 accessions of 182 species in its in-vitro genebank.Heritage & Strategic NecessityConserving this genetic wealth — both in situ (on-farm) and ex situ (genebank) settings — not only preserves India’s agricultural heritage but also ensures that future generations of farmers, breeders and researchers can access and utilise this diversity for agricultural innovations, says Gyanendra Pratap Singh, director, NBPGR. “It is also important to conserve this genetic diversity to recover any losses that the country may suffer because of natural or man-made calamities,” he adds.But protecting the gene pool is not just a matter of protecting heritage, Singh points out. “It is a strategic necessity for resilient, sustainable and inclusive agricultural development.”National Genebank — in association with its regional stations, spread across different climatic zones of the country, and several crop-based institutes in the National Germplasm Conservation Network — explores, multiplies and conserves Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) for food and agriculture. PGRs form the basis of all crop varieties that are bred to produce more, withstand stresses and yield quality output. Preparing For DoomsdayBut what if National Genebank’s facilities get damaged or destroyed in a natural disaster or during war? Most recently, Ukraine’s only Plant Genetic Resources Bank suffered massive damage in the ongoing war with Russia. There are other instances, too. National Genebank, Philippines, was severely damaged in a typhoon in Sept 2006 and again by ﬁre in 2012. In 2011, National Genebank of Thailand was ﬂooded, resulting in the loss of some 20,000 unique rice accessions. Genebanks in Afghanistan (2002) and Iraq (2018) were destroyed during unrest and one in Syria had to be relocated in 2014 because of civil war. A 2°C rise in temperature, because of refrigeration malfunctioning, caused damage in Italy’s genebank, where 80,000 samples were conserved.Norway established the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) in 2008 — often called the Doomsday Vault — as a global safety back-up to counter such losses. It offers free, long-term storage of duplicates of seed samples stored in genebanks of different countries, including India. NBPGR has kept 3,292 samples of eight key species in SGSV as a back-up. In order to safeguard India’s samples of PGRs to avoid a disastrous situation, govt in its Budget for 2025-26 announced the establishment of a second national genebank — to conserve 10 lakh crop germplasm for future food and nutritional security. It’ll be the country’s own seed vault, like the SGVC. The decision to build one in the country is signiﬁcant, as all duplicates of the country’s conserved samples cannot be kept abroad for strategic reasons.India’s second national genebank will actually be a much safer genebank facility at a geographically distant but more secure location.The duplicate transfers from Delhi’s National Genebank will be carried out over a period of six years.There is already a very small facility at Chang La in the Himalayas, set up in 2010 and maintained by DRDO, where NBPGR has deposited over 5,000 germplasm accessions as a safety back-up.