1m seeds in cold storage

THE Arctic Circle vault where the world’s most precious seeds are kept has hit the one million mark.

Kept in storage chambers buried in a mountain in Svalbard, Norway, the collection aims to protect the diversity of food crops.

Among 70,000 just added to take it past a million were the Estonian onion potato and a barley used to brew Irish beer.

Hannes Dempewolf, of the Crop Trust, said: “Only a few years back, I don’t think we’d have thought we would get there.”