Third birthday of arctic repository brings surge in seed deposits, but also reminders from Egypt, Australia and Russia of natural and man-made risks to global agriculture.

The Global Crop Diversity Trust today announced a major global search to systematically find, gather, catalogue, use, and save the wild relatives of wheat, rice, beans, potato, barley, lentils, chickpea, and other essential food crops, in order to help protect global food supplies against the imminent threat of climate change, and strengthen future food security.

As the fate of Europe's largest collection of fruit and berries hangs in the balance of a Russian court decision, the Global Crop Diversity Trust issued an urgent appeal for the Russian government to embrace its heroic tradition as protector of the world's crop diversity and halt the planned destruction of an incredibly valuable crop collection near St. Petersburg.

US seed collection delivers valuable varieties of chili peppers and hundreds of sorghum varieties, an essential 'climate ready' crop.

The foundation that oversees the Svalbard Global Seed Vault said Thursday that the unique Arctic "doomsday" stockpile of all the world's crop seeds has reached the half-million species mark.