On February 26, 2009, Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture (COA) joined the world’s most ambitious seed bank project and signed the agreement of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV; http://www.nordgen.org/sgsv/) with the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) at a celebration activity marking the first anniversary of SGSV in Norway. The SGSV, funded by the Norwegian government and inaugurated on February 26, 2008, is built into the side of a permafrost-covered mountain on the island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean. It is designed to store in deep freeze the seeds of the world’s plant and crop varieties as insurance against global catastrophes. More than 100 countries have endorsed the vault. COA will provide about 12,000 seed samples of rice, grains, and vegetables to SGSV for preservation in the future.