OSLO, May 30: A frozen ‘Noah’s Ark’ to safeguard the world’s crop seeds from cataclysms will be built on a remote Arctic island off Norway, the Norwegian government said on Tuesday.

Construction of the Global Seed Vault, in a mountainside on the island of Svalbard 1,000km from the North Pole, would start in June with completion due in September 2007.

“Norway will by this contribute to the global system for ensuring the diversity of food plants. A Noah’s Ark on Svalbard if you will,” Norwegian Agriculture and Food Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said in a statement.

The doomsday vault would be built near Longyaerbyen, Svalbard’s main village, with space for three million seed varieties.

It would store seeds including rice, wheat, and barley as well as fruits and vegetables.

It would be a remote Arctic back-up for scores of other seed banks around the world, which may be more vulnerable to risks ranging from nuclear war to mundane power failures.

“Gene banks can be affected by shutdowns, natural disasters, wars or simply a lack of money,” Riis-Johansen said.

Loss of genetic diversity would mean losing a part of cultural heritage.

The seeds would be stored at -18 Celsius. If the power failed, the seeds would probably stay frozen.

“The temperature there is around -3C, -4C in the summer, but we believe that even if the freezers broke down a suitable temperature would last for months,” said Grethe Helene Evjen, a senior adviser at the agriculture ministry.—Reuters