OSLO, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Global Seed Vault on Norway's remote island of Svalbard opened its doors on Tuesday to welcome 23 depositors, marking its first intake of the year.

This occasion witnessed the highest number of first-time contributors in a single event. Nine depositors, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria and Zambia, sent their seeds for safekeeping for the first time.

Operated by the non-profit organization Crop Trust in collaboration with Norwegian authorities, the vault plays a crucial role in preserving the genetic diversity of important food crops.

"The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a long-term security measure for global food security. After this deposit, 111 seed banks in 77 different countries will have a backup of their seeds in Svalbard," Norway's Minister of Agriculture and Food Geir Pollestad said at the event.

Among the crops deposited were staple foods such as beans, barley, cowpea, maize, rice, millet, and sorghum, essential for sustaining global food supplies. Additionally, the deposit expanded its biodiversity with the inclusion of tree and forage seeds, including the African baobab, various types of acacia from the World Agroforestry Center, and seeds of birch, pine, and spruce from Norway's Forest Tree Seed Center.

These new samples join over one million seed samples already safeguarded within the vault's subterranean chambers, kept at around minus 18 degrees Celsius. With nearly 14,000 seeds added in this round, the vault now boasts a collection exceeding 1.27 million seed samples.

Established in 2008, the vault's primary mission is to safeguard the genetic diversity of the world's food plants. It aims to ensure the survival of agricultural and industrial crops against threats like war, terrorism and natural calamities.

With a capacity to hold up to 4.5 million distinct seed varieties, the vault can accommodate duplicates of every unique seed variant stored in global gene banks, as well as any new types procured in the future. Enditem

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