'Mud, Blood and Genes.' Global Crop Diversity Trust. Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.'Genebanks and Databases - Accessions.' 2002. Here is a sampling of other seed banks around the world: The institute has recently been in need of funding and has received grants in the past from the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Its global collection contains hundreds of thousands of specimens. The institute is the only facility of its kind in Russia. Vavilov was one of the first scientists to understand the importance of crop diversity and played a major role in raising awareness of the importance of genetic conservation. Nikolai Vavilov, for whom the institute is named, was a Russian biologist and plant breeder. Petersburg, Russia, and is the oldest seed bank in the world. The Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry was established in 1894 in St. Public and corporate donations, as well as grants and endowments, fund the MSBP. Seeds remain in their country of origin, but the Kew location stores duplicates for backup. The MSBP collaborates with other seed banking organizations around the globe by sharing information or assisting in seed collection. It currently stores samples of the country's entire native plant population, including several hundred endangered species. Its goal is to eventually store and protect more than 24,000 global species of plants. The Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP) is located at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. The Norwegian government funded the construction of the vault, and the Global Crop Diversity Trust is responsible for the annual operating costs. All major banks have contributed seeds, including all banks operated by CGIAR. The responsibility for replacements and additions lies solely with the organization that provided the seeds in the first place. In fact, security is so tight that no single person possesses all the codes necessary to enter the vault. The seeds in the vault are stored under 'black box' arrangements, meaning that overseers of the vault will never open or test any of the seed packages.

Rather than acting as an active seed repository, the Doomsday Vault is a global backup system for the planet's plant resources.

The vault seed bank