THE SVALBARD GLOBAL SEED VAULT WORLD COLDEST BANK

Bill Gates and other investors have secured a 'doomsday seed vault' to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago.The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure backup facility for the world's crop diversity on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago.The Seed Vault provides long-term storage of duplicates of seeds conserved in genebanks around the world. This provides security of the world’s food supply against the loss of seeds in genebanks due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts, and natural disasters. The Seed Vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement among the Norwegian Government, the Crop Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). The Norwegian government entirely funded the Seed Vault's approximately 45 million kr (US$8.8 million in 2008) construction cost.Norway and the Crop Trust pay for operational costs. Storing seeds in the vault is free to depositors.