Malaysia Stores Rice, Eggplant & Longbean Seeds in Norway’s -18ºC ‘Doomsday Vault’

By Danial Martinus  •  03 Mar 2025 in Futurism

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In a historic move to preserve its agricultural biodiversity, Malaysia has successfully deposited a range of heritage seeds and traditional crop varieties in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) in the Arctic region of Longyearbyen, Norway.

More popularly known as the ‘Doomsday Vault’, the SGSV is essentially humankind’s last resort in the event of a catastrophic loss of essential crops. And as we know, if our crops die, then we won’t have any oxygen to breathe nor any food to eat. The human race would be screwed.

Buried deep in permafrost and naturally maintained at a temperature of -18ºC, the facility serves as the world’s ultimate insurance policy for genetic resources.

A fail-safe in case of disasters

Malaysia’s contribution to the SGSV was spearheaded by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) under the BOLD (Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods, and Development) Project.

Drawing from Malaysia’s national genetic repositories—MyGeneBank and the National Paddy Gene Bank—MARDI carefully selected genetic resources that have been preserved since 1977. Among the safeguarded crops are traditional rice varieties, eggplants, and long beans, totalling 725 accessions. These seeds were deposited in two batches, one in May and another in December 2024.

This year, the vault’s doors were opened for the first time on 26 February to make way for seeds from Malaysia and 20 other countries.

You might be thinking, “They’re just a bunch of seeds, what’s the big deal?”

Regardless of whether or not you believe in climate change and global warming, there’s no denying that we humans can’t live without essential crops. When they all die, we won’t be able to breathe. Plus, even us meat-eaters won’t survive, since our food relies on these plants and crops to live.

Having seeds deposited in the SGSV ensures we can ‘revive’ lost food staples in the event that our local repositories are destroyed (by natural disasters—or worse, war). Or else, how would you have nasi lemak without the nasi? I’d rather not live in that bleak reality.

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