The world's insurance policy

So the first batch of the world's crop seeds is now packed away deep in the cold Svalbard mountainside, and the vault's doors, for the time being, are once again sealed. In total, more than 100 million seeds, representing some 250,000 individual strains of almost 100 major crops, from sorghum to sunflowers, have been loaded up in vault number 2 (I'm not sure why they started with vault no. 2 - although it may have been something to do with the fact that during the opening, vault no. 1 was playing host to 150 delegates and about a dozen live musical performers). Over 11 tonnes of seeds, in an impressive 656 boxes, were loaded up and locked away in little more than an hour.

So what now for the Global Seed Vault? Eventually, the collection will grow until it includes almost every crop strain in existence - as many as 1.5 million different seed types. Assembling this collection will mean taking delivery of millions upon millions of seeds, all carefully selected by the local and national seed banks that own them.