FNC representatives visit Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway

• Seeking to preserve the world’s coffee collections and guarantee viable production in the future, the FNC was invited to participate in this initiative by providing Arabica coffee beans from its International Coffee Collections.

Bogota, March 1, 2017 (FNC Press Office) – Because of its contributions to the global coffee industry, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) was invited to visit the Global Seed Vault.

Located in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, 980 km from the North Pole, the vault seeks to ensure conservation and availability of a wide range of crops as a way to contribute to global food security in the future.

Hernando Duque, the FNC Chief Technical Officer, and Juan Esteban Orduz, director of the FNC office in the United States, visited the vault in representation of the Colombian coffee growers’ union.

The Global Seed Vault seeks to preserve the world’s different crop seed types to prevent potential loss if a world catastrophe were to occur.

To guarantee conservation of seeds, the vault was located and built on a remote site with suited natural conditions, hence the selection of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.