The Indian Seed Vault is a secure

seed bank A seed bank (also seed banks, seeds bank or seed vault) stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity; hence it is a type of gene bank. There are many reasons to store seeds. One is to preserve the genes that plant breeders need to increase yield, ...

located in a high-altitude mountain pass on the

Chang La Chang La is a high mountain pass in Ladakh at an elevation of in the Greater Himalaya between Leh and the Shyok River valley. The Chang La, on Leh to Pangong Lake road, lies on the Leh-Karu- Sakti- Zingral-Chang La-Durbuk-Tangtse-Pangong La ...

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory and constitutes an eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a Kashmir#Kashmir dispute, dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and India an ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It was built in 2010 jointly by the

Defence Institute of High Altitude Research The Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR) is a defence laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) located in Leh city of Ladakh in India. It conducts research on cold arid agro-animal technologies. Hist ...

and the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, and is the second largest seed bank in the world.

History

In the late 1980s, the movement was initiated by the group of activists of Hemwal Valley of Tehri and led by a farmer and social activist Vijay Jardhari. ‘Beej Bachao Andolan’ (Save the Seeds Movement) was started from Jardhargaon of Tehri district, Uttarakhand. The Indian Seed Vault was established in 2010 through a collaboration between the

(DIHAR) and the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources'' (NBPGR) to secure India’s crop diversity in extreme environmental conditions. It serves as a backup for more than 5,000 seed accessions.

Seed storage

The Indian Seed Bank was carved into a granite outcrop at Chang La, the vaulted chamber is insulated naturally by subzero temperatures, with steel racks and hermetically sealed cryotanks. The vault stores over 10,000 seeds and 200 plant species. These seeds include apricots, barley, cabbage, carrots, radish, potatoes, tomatoes, rice, and wheat, chosen based on qualities such as yield or resistance to temperature, pests and humidity. A solar‑powered generator and back‑up diesel engine maintain a constant –18 °C internal environment, while all access and monitoring systems including RFID‑tagged seed packets and remote‑sensing alarms are duplicated at the low‑land National Genebank in

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

to guard against loss.

References

{{Reflist 2010 establishments in Jammu and Kashmir 2010 in the environment Agricultural organisations based in India Conservation projects Disaster recovery Emergency management in India Gene banks Indian companies established in 2010 Protected areas of India Science and technology in India Seed associations Tunnels in India

History

Seed storage

See also

References