Baekdu Daegan Arboretum Completes Permanent Storage of 187,000 Agricultural Seeds

(Daejeon=Yonhap News) Reporter Park Ju-young = The Korea National Arboretum under the Korea Forest Service received 7,000 agricultural seeds including barley, soybeans, and wheat from the National Agricultural Science Center's Agricultural Genetic Resources Center and stored them as duplicates in the Baekdu-daegan Global Seed Vault.

This completes the project of duplicating the 187,000 agricultural seeds held by the Agricultural Genetic Resources Center in the Baekdu-daegan Global Seed Vault after five years.

The seed vault is a facility designed to permanently store seeds to prevent plant extinction in preparation for global disasters and catastrophes.

The Baekdu-daegan Global Seed Vault has been working to preserve agricultural genetic resources since signing a business agreement with the National Agricultural Science Center in 2020.

Shim Sang-taek, chairman of the Korea National Arboretum, said, "Preservation of agricultural genetic resources is directly linked to the country's future food security" and "We will continue to cooperate closely with the National Agricultural Science Center to ensure the safe duplicate storage of agricultural seeds."

jyoung@yna.co.kr