Abstract

Grethe Helene Evjen is a Senior Advisor at the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food. She will discuss her role in establishing and coordinating the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and its global role in providing for future food security and sustainable agriculture.

She works on the overall management of Seed Vault. She is also the Head of the Norwegian delegation to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, and the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. For 20 years she been involved in intergovernmental efforts for securing crop diversity, including the establishment of a multilateral system that allows all countries access to these resources. The establishment of the Seed Vault is based on this intergovernmental cooperation.