In this conversation, Global Crop Diversity Trust CEO Stefan Schmitz illuminates the critical but often overlooked work of the Trust in safeguarding agricultural biodiversity. He explains how the organisation's iconic Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and its support for the global network of gene banks, serve as humanity's insurance policy against crop failures and genetic erosion. As climate change, water scarcity, and soil degradation threaten global food systems, Stefan makes a compelling case for crop diversity as an essential resource for developing more resilient, nutritious and sustainable agriculture.
In this episode of Devpolicy Talks, Robin Davies interviews Stefan Schmitz, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
The conversation begins with a discussion of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. Often called the "Doomsday Vault", it actually serves as a safety backup for the world's 800+ gene banks, protecting against localised mishaps like civil wars, fires, or natural disasters. Stefan explains how this resource proved invaluable during the Syrian Civil War, allowing the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) to retrieve its vital seed collection and resume research in Morocco after its Aleppo headquarters was looted.
Stefan details the practical aspects of the Vault's operations — its Arctic location provides natural cooling advantages, reducing operational costs while offering geological stability. Currently holding about one-third of its 4.5 million seed sample capacity, the Vault aims to fill the remaining chambers over the next 10 to 20 years.
Beyond Svalbard, Stefan outlines the Crop Trust's broader mission to support gene banks worldwide through its endowment fund and technical assistance. He emphasises that gene banks aren't static museums but innovation hubs crucial for agricultural development. The Trust helps gene banks collect, characterise and distribute crop diversity to researchers and farmers, particularly focusing on developing varieties that can withstand climate change and provide improved nutrition.
The discussion also covers the Trust's information systems work, including the Genesis platform that now catalogues 75% of all registered crop accessions globally. Stefan highlights the Trust's emergency response efforts in conflict zones like Ukraine and Sudan, where it helps secure threatened seed collections.
Looking to the future, Stefan acknowledges funding challenges in the current climate of shrinking support for development programs and multilateral organisations, though 2024 was the Trust's most successful year for resource mobilisation. He outlines the Trust's 2030 strategy, which shifts from supporting individual gene banks to building a more integrated global system with better coordination and information sharing.
The interview concludes with discussions about the Crop Trust's work in the Asia-Pacific region, including projects with the The Pacific Community in Fiji and prospects for deeper collaboration with Australia.
Stefan Schmitz: 2024 has been the most successful year in resource mobilisation in the history of the Crop Trust, and we are now more and more concerned seeing developments with budget cuts and the development space generally a shrinking space for multilateral activities. There is hardly any field of work where multilateralism and international cooperation is as important as in the seed sector. It is now important to raise political understanding that it is a necessity to use this global public good, to conserve it, but it's also a great opportunity.
Robin Davies: Welcome to Devpolicy Talks, the podcast of the Development Policy Centre. We're part of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country in Canberra.
I'm Robin Davies.
This is our twelfth season, and we're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and in-depth features on topics central to our research – including Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and broader regional and global development issues.
In today's episode, I speak with Stefan Schmitz, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, commonly known as the Crop Trust. Stefan joined the organisation in 2020, bringing with him over 20 years of experience at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, where he previously led the "One World – No Hunger" initiative.
The Crop Trust plays a crucial role in global food security by safeguarding agricultural biodiversity through its support of gene banks worldwide. Perhaps its most well-known project is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway – sometimes referred to, a little over-dramatically, as the "Doomsday Vault" – which serves as a backup facility for crop seeds from around the world.
In our conversation, Stefan discusses the Trust's work in preserving crop diversity, the importance of gene banks as innovation hubs rather than mere storage facilities, and the challenges of maintaining sustainable funding in an era of declining support for multilateral organisations. We also explore the Crop Trust's relationships with Australian institutions and its strategic priorities through 2030.
As we face mounting challenges from climate change, soil degradation and growing water stress, the preservation of crop diversity becomes increasingly vital for future food security. Stefan offers valuable insights into how the Crop Trust's global network of gene banks is working to ensure that humanity has the genetic resources needed to develop resilient, nutritious crops for generations to come.
Just a quick note on terminology. You’ll hear the term accessions used a few times. In this context accessions are distinct, uniquely identified samples of seeds or plant material that are stored in gene banks. Each accession preserves unique genetic traits that might be valuable for future crop breeding and research.
Stefan Schmitz: My name is Stefan Schmitz. I'm the Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, or Crop Trust for short. Before coming to the Crop Trust in 2020 as the Executive Director, I had been with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, BMZ, for over 20 years. I have a background in geography and mathematics. The Crop Trust is an international organisation set up, established more than 20 years ago. Its mandate is to provide technical and financial support to gene banks in need all over the world.
Robin Davies: So I guess I've been aware of the Crop Trust for some years, going back to the days of Carey Fowler, when he was CEO. I guess the way I thought about it was a bit like a reference library or a reference laboratory – that, in relation to the very large network of other international gene banks and national gene banks, the Crop Trust sits at one higher level and provides support to them, and in a sense, is a gene bank of last resort. Is that roughly how you think about it?
Stefan Schmitz: Yeah, well, that's a very unique gene bank, the one in Svalbard. It's only a security backup. What means only? I mean, it's absolutely important to have such an institution, and it was built to provide room for safety duplicates that's open for all gene banks around the world. And we encourage gene banks around the world to safety duplicate their collections and send duplicates up to Svalbard. In a way, it's a very unique gene bank, that's right, and it is kind of the umbrella for the rest of the gene banks. There are more than 800 gene banks around the world, registered with long-term storage facilities. Svalbard makes sure that in case something happens in one of those gene banks — that can be a civil war, that can be a fire, can be a thunderstorm, all things that can lead to a destruction of a gene bank — that the collections have their safe place somewhere else in Svalbard, so that later withdrawal from Svalbard is possible, and the breeding and research with that genetic resources can continue.
That happened during the Syrian Civil War. At that time, ICARDA, the International Agricultural Research Institute for Agriculture in Dry Areas, had its headquarters in Aleppo in Syria. And together with the research facilities was their gene bank, with more than 100,000 accessions of all kinds of crops that are important for dryland agriculture. And fortunately, the entire collection had been securely backed up and the duplicates sent to Svalbard so that after the war, after the looting, the duplicates could be withdrawn from Svalbard and sent to Morocco, to Rabat where then ICARDA, at new premises, could continue research and breeding that is so important for so many people around the world, not just in the Mediterranean area in the Sahel, but in the Middle East and further on in the Asia region.
Robin Davies: Now, I know there's a lot more to the Crop Trust than the Svalbard Seed Vault, but that facility does capture people's imagination. So perhaps, if we can stay on that just for a moment, can you say a little bit more about what it is, where it is, how it operates? I think you've already made it clear that it's not the Doomsday Vault that some people describe it as. It's there to respond to what might often be quite a localised mishap that affect a gene back in a particular place. It's not, it wasn't built for global, apocalyptic sort of outcomes, but if you could just say a bit more about how it operates.
Stefan Schmitz: Yeah, that is exactly it. It is often coined as the Doomsday Vault. But those things, like in Syria, those happen, and they can happen here. They can happen tomorrow, next year. It can happen in places like Syria. They can happen in a Pacific island with a thunderstorm and so on, and those things happen and to make sure that the collections are safe and so that they can be used for further breeding and research after those incidences.
Robin Davies: And I understand it's essentially a large freezer, right? It's for crop varieties that can be stored through freezing, which I think is not all crop varieties.
Stefan Schmitz: Yes, it is. The reason to set this vault up in the Arctic as well — there was the willingness of the Norwegian government to provide this facility, and it makes sense to put it at a very remote place, remote that is with a low risk of earthquakes, and which is still accessible. And so this place on Svalbard was chosen. It's the northernmost place on earth you can reach by regular air traffic, which is, I think, important to bring seeds up there, which we do three times a year.
It is drilled deep into the mountains. You go down and inside the mountains, you have three large chambers that are able to host more than 4.5 million accessions of different seeds all together. You could run such a vault on any place on Earth. You can run it in the hot desert of Australia or other places. The problem in other hot environments is in case the cooling system fails, you need to act immediately. Because when the cooling system fails and temperatures go up, the accessions are threatened immediately, within 24 hours. You don't have that problem up in the north. And what is likewise important is in hot environment, it costs you an awful lot of money to cool it down to minus 18 degrees. That is comparatively cheap in an ambient environment. In the middle of that mountain, it is already minus 10 degrees, and so bringing it down to minus 18 is quite cheap and easily to achieve. All that together brought the decision to create such a vault up in the Arctic.
Robin Davies: And the material in the vault can't be stored indefinitely, I understand; it has to be rotated and then replaced.
Stefan Schmitz: Yeah. Well, if the material is prepared for long-term storage really properly — so dry it down, reduce humidity in the seed, put in aluminium packages, seal, vacuum it, seal it — then for most varieties, you can expect longevity of 30, 40, 50 years. However, you need to control it, and that is usually what you do. You do viability tests in the home countries, not in Svalbard. You keep Svalbard black boxes in the mountain as they are. You do regular viability tests in the home gene banks, and as long as in the home gene banks, which have similar or equal storage environments at minus 18 degrees, as long as germination rate stays above 90% or so, that's absolutely fine. You can expect that the samples up in Svalbard have the same likelihood of being viable. But as soon as the viability tests bring up germination going down to 85-80%, then alarm bells ring, and that's a time to withdraw the duplicates from Svalbard and exchange them for fresh samples.
Robin Davies: I understand the vault is running at maybe about a quarter of its storage capacity at this point. Do you anticipate ever approaching its full capacity?
Stefan Schmitz: Yes, we are aiming at that. You are right. There are three chambers in the mountains with a capacity of roughly 1.5 million accessions each, summing up to 4.5 million accessions. The first of the three chambers is filled up now, so there is room for about 3 million more. This is our goal: to encourage more gene banks around the world to safely duplicate their accessions, and for those gene banks who don't have the financial capacity and the knowledge to do so, we also provide technical and financial support. So hopefully, in 10 to 20 years' time, we will then have the Seed Vault completely filled up and made sure that all unique and valuable genetic material has its secondary home up in the north.
Robin Davies: And do you face any particular barriers when you're dealing with national gene banks? Are there any that have concerns about the same material being stored elsewhere in the world—nationalistic sorts of concerns?
Stefan Schmitz: Yeah, there are. I mean, for political reasons, for cultural reasons, whatever, here and there you find reluctance to duplicate and send material outside the country. We continue to try to convince countries and gene banks to do so, as they very clearly keep ownership of that. Nobody else has access to it. It is like a black box. It is like in a bank safe, where you can put your jewels, or whatever important things you possess. You put your seeds, your accessions, and nobody else has access to it. This is fully guaranteed.
Robin Davies: Now, we're in Australia. I should ask: to what extent are Australian crop varieties represented in Svalbard?
Stefan Schmitz: Yeah, Australia did send valuable material up there. It is a process; new material will come in from time to time. I just came back from a visit to the Australian Grains Gene Bank in Horsham in Victoria — great facilities. And of course, they duplicate their material and send it up to Svalbard.
Robin Davies: The Crop Trust's stewardship of the Svalbard Seed Vault is just one thing that it does, and in fact, that's done in partnership with the Norwegian government. Can you talk a bit about the other functions of the Crop Trust, particularly in relation to technical support for national gene banks?
Stefan Schmitz: The Crop Trust is a hybrid organisation. On the one hand, we are a secondary donor. We are able to provide financial support and in-kind technical support based on return on investment of our endowment fund. This endowment fund is filled and continues to be filled up by donors. So that is our first, the most important work stream.
In addition to that, we are also a project implementer, where we do time-bound work to improve the functions of gene banks. And generally speaking, out of the return on investment on the endowment, we provide funding to the essential operations of the gene banks — monitoring, duplication, characterisation of material, running the cooling system, having trained staff, and all of that. So essentially, for the gene banks, that is covered by our endowment fund.
Anything else going beyond that is covered by project work that we do. We try our best to do so by project work that is starting with collecting of materials from the fields, collecting from crop wild relatives in nature, which is not yet finished. This is ongoing work, ongoing efforts. We provide training, capacity development to gene bank staff. We help to upgrade the standard of that.
And most important in all of that is we try to make sure that the genetic resources in those collections find their way to researchers and breeders and also back to farmers. As gene banks are no museums, not just storing places, we see them as innovation hubs. They can play a critical role in development processes, and we currently work together with roughly 50-60 gene banks around the world in need for help. We help them in all kinds of areas — collecting material, upgrading capacity development and pre-breeding work to make sure that the material can be used.
This is our core budget. What we do in with Svalbard, the support we give there in cooperation with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Institute (NordGen) is kind of an add-on to that. Our bread-and-butter business is really the cooperation with the very many gene banks around the world.
Robin Davies: Yeah, and I understand you also operate an emergency reserve, which you can use when a gene bank is at risk. So rather than waiting for a requirement to access Svalbard, you will make support available to reduce those risks. I think you did this in Laos recently.
Stefan Schmitz: We did this in Laos. We did this in Sudan. We do this in cooperation with the Secretariat of the International Plant Treaty based in Rome. We have been heavily involved in the emergency around the Ukraine gene bank. It was already at the very beginning of the Russian aggression. The national gene bank of Ukraine was based in Kharkiv, so very close in the far east of the country, close to the border and close to the front then, and the gene bank one day experienced an attack, and so the material with more than 100,000 accessions really was at risk. For Ukraine, agriculture is important, not just wheat. Wheat was the most important one, but also various oilseeds and legumes.
So from that day on, all alarm bells rang, and together with our colleagues from FAO and with the partners in the countries, we tried hard to first relocate the gene bank to the west of the country, and in addition to support them in duplicating their material, to send it outside the country, in particular to Svalbard. That hadn't been the case; we were all well surprised to realise that less than 4% of the entire accessions of this gene bank in Kharkiv was duplicated. And so it was kind of a race against time to make sure that the entire material is duplicated and sent outside the country.
That's a typical example where emergencies happen. That was in Laos, that has been on the Philippines recently, it has been Sudan, and you see it's related to all kinds of incidents. It can be a war, a civil war, it can be a thunderstorm, it can be an earthquake, or whatever. And then we need to make sure that as soon as possible, something happens, because once the cooling system fails, then the material is threatened to lose their viability.
Robin Davies: And I suppose with such a large and complex network of gene banks, whether national or regional or international, it's very important that there are effective, interoperable digital information systems. I believe your organisation does quite a bit of work in that area, including the Genesis platform. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Stefan Schmitz: Yeah, so when the Crop Trust started the work 20 years ago, of course, we started incorporating support for individual gene banks. That was necessary to start with. And many of the gene banks we started to work with 20 years ago were in a terrible state. And it's so encouraging to see today where they are now, and really to see the progress, the quality of the infrastructure and the quality of their ability to distribute material to the world, to other places outside the country, to breeders, to researchers.
So that was the first step — providing individual support. We now, after 20 years, entering into our second phase of existence, put more and more emphasis on looking beyond individual gene banks and regard them as a system, as a global system of ex situ conservation, and to provide funding, in particular, for better cooperation, providing support for building the glue of that system. This is incredibly valuable when it comes to making a real, effective and efficient global system.
What are elements of such a support for building a full functioning system? Information systems, I think, are key to guarantee interoperability. Providing the information system infrastructure is key. We work on two ends. The one you already mentioned, the Genesis System. This is one of our flagship projects. I would say we are absolutely proud to see that 75% of all registered accessions on Earth are now — you find those accessions with all the so-called passport data in Genesis. This is one thing.
And then we are also working on a so-called Green Global Genebank Information System that is more for the internal use, internal data management for the gene bank staff. Both together, combined, are ideal infrastructure to have a 21st century system of gene banks.
There are other system-wide supports we are providing. We are working on quality management, which is a very important aspect, mutual learning, knowledge management is important. We start to cooperate with botanical gardens and try to make sure that their seed collections are somehow, let's say, in a similar manner, catalogued, and put information together so that we can collect and bring together a real global network of all institutions providing genetic resources for food and agriculture. These and similar things all make up our support. So it is, on the one hand, information system, but it goes clearly beyond that.
Robin Davies: We're talking at a time of really unprecedented funding uncertainty for international organisations. Now you've talked about the endowment fund that you have, which is in quite a healthy condition. I think it has over 300 million US dollars in it at the moment, and normally you're receiving several grants a year which support the fund and your ongoing operational expenses. But I have to ask, how exposed is the Crop Trust to the risk of funding reductions from some of the major donors? The two that are in the headlines lately, of course, are the United States and the United Kingdom, but we are seeing potentially some reductions from others. What's your funding outlook at the moment?
Stefan Schmitz: Last year, 2024 has been the most successful year in resource mobilisation in the history of the Crop Trust. We are very happy about it, and well, we are now more and more concerned seeing developments with budget cuts in the development space, generally, a shrinking space for multilateral activities. And so that is concerning. We currently haven't yet any very clear signal of cuts, but we are aware of the risks, of the challenges, and we need to be prepared that the coming years will not be as successful as in the past.
But on the other hand, the crisis makes us think of perhaps new funding sources, which is not easy, but I think we have a very good, a very clear mandate, with a very clear and important vision and mission of the Crop Trust, and we hope we are able to get other new donors we haven't reached yet, who see the importance of making sure that genetic resources are conserved. It is not easy, but we are convinced that we can reach our fundraising goal. That means, from currently having a market value of 350 million US dollars in our endowment, roughly doubling it over the next years, is still possible, and we need to double it to fulfil our mandate completely and make sure that all important material is really conserved.
It is extremely important when looking into the future. We need to produce more food, we need to produce better food, and we need to produce food for all, make sure that there is no hunger very soon. On the other hand, there are growing challenges — soil degradation, growing water stress, climate change — and business as usual is not an option. We need to improve our food systems, make them more resilient, make them more resilient to different kinds of challenges, to climate change. We need new varieties, crop varieties that are more tolerant to climate stress, or resistant to pests and diseases. We need new livelihood opportunities for smallholder farmers. We need more nutritional value crops that have a better content of micronutrients, vitamins, everything.
So a lot of challenges, and I am absolutely convinced that we need the diversity in the fields, and in particular in gene banks. We need more diverse food systems to be able to meet those challenges. So no future of human food without that diversity. And so we need to continue and make sure that everybody is aware of that.
Robin Davies: And this raises a question that I've actually discussed with a couple of your colleagues in the CGIAR system in previous interviews. I mean, the work of the Crop Trust is ultimately a global public good, and yet most of the funding comes from official development assistance. And that's quite surprising, and you would hope that over time, funding sources diversify, not just within the field of ODA, but start to take in funding from private sources, perhaps universities with generous endowments, or all sorts of other sources.
Stefan Schmitz: Yeah, new sovereign donors, private sector foundations, high net worth individuals, we need to address them all. That's important. You're absolutely right. It is a global public good, and as such, we need to make sure that it is conserved, not just secured, but also used in a sustainable way.
We are, I mean, compared to other global public goods like mangroves or tropical rainforests, the genetic resources in gene banks are the only global public good that has such an endowment. We should use that opportunity. There is hardly any field of work where multilateralism and international cooperation is as important as in the seed sector and in the food sector in general. We are all dependent on each other. That was the reason for the background, the rationale for the International Plant Treaty for Food and Agriculture, from my perspective, one of the most important multilateral instruments and agreements we have on earth.
Yes, and it is good we have this, and it is now important to raise political understanding that it is a necessity to use this global public good, to conserve it, but it's also a great opportunity. With more diverse food, we can address so many developmental issues from climate issues, biodiversity issues, better resource efficiency, towards recycling, towards regenerative agriculture, better livelihoods for millions of smallholder farmers, better nutrition for so many malnourished people around the world. So there are so many benefits to the conservation and use of crop diversity that I hope we can get there — the sooner, the better.
Robin Davies: I should ask – I suspect some of our listeners will be wondering about the source of the endowment. You say it's a unique asset, where did the majority of that funding originally come from?
Stefan Schmitz: 96-97% of the entire donations we received so far came from traditional, sovereign donors. The rest, 3%, from private sector and private foundations. I think that no doubt, sovereign donors will stay the main important donors in the future, be it from developmental sources or from global climate finance or whatever. But the relation must change. I see the need for private sector and others to come in.
So the accumulated donation into the endowment is now roughly 300 million US dollars. And comparing this to the 350 million market value the endowment fund currently stays, is very telling and shows how successful this model is. We, in the meantime, have withdrawn almost 100 million from the endowment to provide technical and financial support. So in a nutshell, we received donations summing up to 300 million. We gained another 150 million on the capital market over time, had withdrawn 100 million over time. So that leads to a remaining 350 million now in our pot. And so that demonstrates that the model as such is excellent. It works. Now we need to go the extra mile, more money to fulfil the mandate completely.
Robin Davies: And again, because we're in Australia, are you hopeful that the Australian Government might resume contributions to the Crop Trust in due course? I know there were grants some years ago, 10 to 15 years ago.
Stefan Schmitz: Australia has been a strong supporter of the Crop Trust right from the beginning. Australia has provided a considerable amount of funding into the endowment. In addition, provided project funding in the past. On top of that, Australia is a political supporter, you have to say, and is really very keen. Australia takes the issue of gene banks absolutely seriously, and this is very much appreciated, and I'm glad to see how this country works with gene banks, and for gene banks, and in support of the Crop Trust.
We are in discussion with the institutions here in Australia now for deeper cooperation over time. I think there are great opportunities. We see the need for support of gene banks and food system development in the entire Asia-Pacific region. And I think that is something where I'm very much looking forward to deeper cooperation with the Australian Government.
Robin Davies: The Pacific region in particular, I suspect it does not have highly developed gene banks. Is there some support from the Crop Trust for gene banks in the Pacific Islands?
Stefan Schmitz: With support from the governments from New Zealand and also Australia, we were able now to initiate cooperation and funding to SPC, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, based on Fiji. This is a very promising first start. It's an important collection where we now help to upgrade the facilities there, where we support training and where we are working towards really long-term storage and use of facilities.
There are other gene banks in the region, like the coconut gene bank in Papua New Guinea. There are international ones, like the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan. There is the International Rice Research Institute in Philippines. There are important national and international gene banks in India. So now, I would say it's a time really that Crop Trust, research institutions and donors put our heads together to come up with a convincing regional strategy, where the support of gene banks and the use of gene bank material for development of the region, for better food, for livelihoods of smallholders, for more nutritional food is done, and it is really promising to go that way.
Robin Davies: And a final question, I know that I think you began in 2020, and so you led the development of a new long-term strategy for the Crop Trust out to 2030 which I think was kicked off at the Global Crop Diversity Summit. If I'm right, what do you see as your highest priorities within that strategy for the remainder of your term?
Stefan Schmitz: Most important now is to look and work beyond support of individual gene banks and towards building a global gene bank system, a system that is efficient and effective and where activities like information systems for gene banks, quality management systems, knowledge sharing, communities of practice and so on are key elements. I regard this now, from the content side, as the most important element of that strategy. The other part is the resource mobilisation we already talked about with the key model on our side—broaden the funding base.
Robin Davies: Well, thank you very much for your time. It's been a very interesting discussion, and I wish you all the best for the rest of your time with the organisation. Thank you very much.