Ukraine has transferred seed samples from its national collection to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, an international reserve designed to preserve plant genetic resources. The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine reported the transfer.
"Preserving the national plant gene pool is a matter of national security and ensuring food stability for future generations. Russia's war has placed Ukrainian agricultural science and strategic resources under direct threat. Transferring a duplicate collection to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault guarantees that the unique achievements of Ukrainian plant breeders will be reliably protected against security risks," emphasised Ukraine's Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, Taras Vysotskyi.
A total of 773 seed samples representing 10 agricultural crops were transferred to the Arctic facility. These include triticale, barley, buckwheat, millet, peas, white lupin, common vetch, brown mustard, alfalfa and clover.
This marks the second transfer of Ukrainian genetic material to Svalbard and the first since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion.
In August 2026, Ukraine joined the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
Ukraine's National Gene Bank ranks among the world's ten largest, holding a unique collection of more than 154,300 samples representing 2,002 plant species, nearly 57,000 of which are of exclusively Ukrainian origin.
As the gene bank's infrastructure has been damaged by the war, international partners — including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the European Commission, NordGen and the Crop Trust — established a dedicated Duplicate Centre in November 2025 to provide backup storage for Ukrainian seeds.
