BULAWAYO, Mar 25 (IPS) – Sudan’s diverse crops and agricultural heritage are at risk of being lost. The ongoing conflict in Sudan is claiming lives and threatening livelihoods and food security.
In the chaos of conflict, scientists like Ali Babiker are fighting to protect Sudan’s future food security—not with weapons, but with seeds.
In a move to safeguard its agricultural future, Sudan has made a crucial deposit at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a remote facility buried deep in the icy Arctic established to protect the world’s crucial crops. This is Sudan’s sixth deposit of seeds in the global vault, a key to saving Sudan’s farming resources for the future. Seeds sent for safekeeping include those of sorghum, pearl millet, maize, cowpea, pigeon pea, and faba bean. In addition, seeds of vegetables such as tomato, pepper, okra, eggplant, and melon were also deposited in the vault.
Owing to the ongoing war, Sudan has lost two farming seasons as farmers could not cultivate their land. The country is facing an acute food and humanitarian crisis the United Nations has described as a catastrophe of “staggering scale and brutality” that demands “sustained and urgent attention”.
Saving Sudan’s Food Future
Babiker, Director of Sudan’s Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Conservation and Research Center (APGRC), has been at the forefront overseeing the collection and storage of vital seeds in the country’s national genebank in the city of Wad Medani, in eastern Sudan.
The center has been collecting plant genetic resources for food and agriculture for more than 40 years, cultivated and wild relatives of a number of crop and plant species. But the war has destroyed it all.
“It is a big shock and frustrating that the war has put the collection at risk that we could lose some of our genetic diversity, which affects food security not only in the country but also in the region,” Babiker told IPS, emphasizing that Sudan is part of the primary diversity regions for a number of crops, among which are sorghum and pearl millet, in East and West Africa.
Thanks to the considerable duplication of germplasm (genetic material) conserved in and outside Sudan, the country is saving its agricultural heritage from loss.
“Depositing copies of Sudan germplasm in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault means that we still have our germplasm intact, and thanks to many partners for the provision of such facilities to safeguard our germplasm and others for free,” said Babiker, explaining that all of the farmer’s stored seeds and grain have been looted and sold in the markets at low prices while the irrigation systems have been blocked, resulting in a failed farming season.
“Generally no growing season was practiced for two years,” Babiker told IPS, noting that attempts to secure seeds stored in the national seed bank were blocked by the Rapid Support Forces, who refused entry to the gene bank.
For years, the Sudan Gene Bank has kept a collection of over 17,000 seed accessions of staple crops. These have been carefully stored in aluminum foil packets inside 35 deep-chest freezers. Babiker said the collection represented Sudan’s genetic diversity, and it was in a critical position when the war reached Wad Medani and the gene bank facilities were looted, including the deep chest freezers.
“We have a diversity of food crops,” said Babiker, who developed an interest in plant diversity while at university and landed an opportunity to work in the country’s genebank. “People in central, east, and south Sudan mainly eat sorghum, whereas people in the west prefer and depend on pearl millet, and those in the north eat wheat.”
The United Nations, together with humanitarian partners, is launching a USD 6 billion response plan to help nearly 26 million people in need in Sudan. Nearly 22 months of conflict have left more than 30 million people across Sudan in need of assistance and protection. Almost half of the country’s population is suffering from “acute” levels of hunger, according to the UN.
Sudan’s fight to preserve its agricultural legacy highlights the resilience of its people and plants in the face of conflict.
In February 2025, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault accepted over 14,000 seed samples from 21 genebanks, including seed samples of the so-called “velvet beans” from Malawi that support both sustainable agriculture and traditional medicine; critical food crops from a Philippine genebank that’s been ravaged by typhoons and fires; and a major collection of more than 3,000 varieties of rice, beans, and maize from Brazil, the host of this year’s global climate negotiations.
Gene Banks in Trouble
Gene banks housing seed collections in many parts of the world face numerous challenges in saving seeds for the future. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, pioneered by Cary Fowler and Geoffrey Hawt, has been helpful.
“I have always wished that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was unnecessary—that all the seed collections around the world were perfectly safe and secure and always would be in the future,” Cary Fowler, former U.S. special envoy for Global Food Security and World Food Prize laureate, told IPS. “Sadly, this is not the world in which we live. We cannot afford to be cavalier about how we protect the biological foundation of agriculture, the diversity of our crops.”
Fowler underscored the importance of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. For instance, the Vault helped rescue and restore a major collection once held in Aleppo in Syria caught in the crossfire of a civil war. The seed vault has a collection of major global importance containing diversity that will—only because it was not lost—continue to be used by plant breeders and farmers around the world for the heat and drought-tolerant traits it contains.
“If the Seed Vault is an insurance policy that is never again used, this first use will justify all the effort and funding that went into establishing the facility,” Fowler said, adding that, “I doubt it will be the last, however. In the meantime, the Seed Vault will continue to educate people about the importance of conserving crop diversity and inspire them to take action.”
The vault is keeping seed collections from 123 genebanks located in 85 countries. In 2023, the vault had 51,591 accessions of seeds backed up and this increased to 64,331 accessions held last year.
Beri Bonglim, Project Specialist, Crop Trust, notes that the crisis of conflict and climate change has heightened the necessity for countries to deposit seeds at Svalbard.
“Yes. The war in Sudan is a good example,” said Bonglim. “It has impacted the national genebank in Wad Medani, making it impossible for them to carry out their routine activities. Through the support of the BOLD Project, staff of the Sudanese national genebank APGRC prepared hundreds of seed samples (including sorghum and pearl millet), which were transported under security escort out of the city. With support from NordGen, these seeds were properly packaged to enter the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Genebanks face natural and human-made risks that threaten their ability to safeguard plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, Bonglim said, noting that floods, typhoons, earthquakes, economic challenges, and political instability can cause severe damage to genebank facilities and lead to the permanent or partial loss of invaluable germplasm.
“A significant challenge, particularly for genebanks in developing countries, is inadequate and inconsistent funding, Bonglim told IPS. “Many operate with limited financial resources and rely heavily on short-term project-based funding, which can be difficult to secure. This financial uncertainty affects their ability to carry out essential activities such as seed regeneration, infrastructure maintenance, and staff salaries, ultimately jeopardizing their role in preserving global crop diversity.”
With funding from the Norwegian government, the Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods, and Development (BOLD) project has supported 42 partners in 30 countries to regenerate and safeguard their seed collections by depositing duplicates at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
The 10-year project to strengthen food and nutrition security worldwide by supporting the conservation and use of crop diversity. Led by the Crop Trust, in partnership with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the BOLD Project is funded by the Norwegian Government and builds upon the work and achievements of the decade-long Crop Wild Relatives Project.
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© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service
