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Te Whakapapa o Seed Banking
By: Marcus-Rongowhitiao Shadbolt
We talk about seed banking a lot here at Te Tira Whakamātaki, but what exactly is it? And why is it so important to us?
At its core, seed banking is the process of drying seeds and storing them for long periods. But, seed storage has evolved significantly across time, cultures, and purpose. To understand why it matters today, we need to look at the whakapapa of seed banking, the long, rich history that connects us to seeds, and seeds to survival.
So, in this piece we will explore ‘Te Whakapapa o Seed banking’ or ‘The origins and history of seed banking’.
Ancient Seed Banking
For as long as humans have planted and grown food, we’ve relied on seeds. For agricultural societies, food security has always depended on saving seeds from one season to the next. Even in many hunter-gatherer societies, people planted groves from collected seed so there was kai when they returned.
Across the world, communities developed ingenious seed-saving techniques:
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In India, Kabla, seeds like corn, rice, and wheat were dried and stored in bamboo or clay pots (Vaagdhara, 2023).
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On Turtle Island, the Oneida nation braided corn cobs to dry and stored them in underground grain pits (OCHD, 2012).
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Also on Turtle Island, the Hopi nation stored corn, beans, and squash in clay pots buried below ground (Maggiore & Vint, 2010).
Photo credit: Oneida Nation of Wisconsin
Photo credit: VAAGDHARA
Māori seed banking whakapapa begins in Polynesia. Research confirms that at least six key species now found across Aotearoa were brought here by Māori: kūmara, hue, aute, taro, uwhi, and tī pore (Furey, 2008). These plants were either kai or had practical use. Some, like kūmara from South America and hue, a hybrid of Asian and American varieties, hint at vast, ancient Pacific trade networks – networks that once existed across the wide Pacific.
In Aotearoa, the most well-known seed storage method was the rua kūmara, underground pits used to keep kūmara safe between seasons (Royal & Kaka-Scott, 2013). These innovations reflect deep ancestral knowledge and an understanding that seeds are taonga.
Photo credit: Te Ara
Modern Seed Banking
While the practice is ancient, the term ‘seed banking’ only appears in recent history.
The first institute to use the term was the National Seed Storage Laboratory in the USA (1958), but modern seed banking is more accurately traced to the Soviet Union’s Bureau of Applied Botany, founded by Nikolai Vavilov in the 1920s (Kean, 2022).
Vavilov believed that ending famine required conserving wild relatives of common crops. He also knew some plants were more resistant to disease, drought, and floods, even if they weren’t the highest yielding plants. He also knew that not all of those resistant seeds were in the USSR. Thats why he and his institute set out to collected a diversity of seeds from across the USSR and beyond. Seeds he believed could be used to strengthen crop resistance and feed more people.
Tragically, the Soviet Union’s Bureau of Applied Botany’s story doesn’t end well. Not only did they lose significant funding, but as it was on the brink of closure, Nazi forces invaded Leningrad (now St Petersburg), cutting the city off from external aid. During the Siege of Leningrad, scientists barricaded themselves inside the institute to protect the seeds needed to replant lands post-war. Many starved to death, surrounded by edible crops they refused to consume because those seeds were the future of their people.
“It was unbearably hard to get up in the morning, [even] to move your hands and feet... but it was not in the least difficult to refrain from eating up the collection.”
- One of the surviving scientists (Kean, 2022).
This harrowing story laid the foundation for global recognition that seed security is national security.
In response, the U.S. launched its own seed bank, the National Seed Storage Laboratory, in 1959, dubbed the Fort Knox of the seed world (Curry, 2022). Driven in part by a view that the diversity of crops would be lost as breeders refined genetic options. From the 1970s onward, the global seed banking movement expanded to include duplicate collections across locations, ensuring backup in case of disaster.
The ultimate backup? The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, opened in 2008. It holds over 1.3 million duplicate seed samples from around the world and includes the most important crops (Crop Trust, 2025). Only one country, Syria, has made a withdrawal due to war and the destruction of their national seed bank.
Seed Banking for Conservation
Historically, seed banking focused on food security. But in recent years, it’s also become a conservation tool.
The Kew, Millenium Seed Bank (MSB), established in 2000, leads this effort. It preserves the seeds of threatened and endangered species, ensuring they can be restored even after extinction in the wild (MSB, 2025). MSB has received contributions from 97 countries since opening and focuses on collection plants not only because of their ecological value, but also their ‘usefulness,’ which includes those important to medicine, rongoā, craft, clothing,and cultural practice.
The Future of Seed Banking in Aotearoa
Today, Aotearoa has several seed banks, mostly in the private sector, and focused on crop plants. But we do not have a dedicated, fully funded, publicly owned national seed bank for native plant conservation.
This is a problem.
Research shows we don’t yet understand how to properly store many of our native seeds, mostly because we haven’t invested in it (Wyse et al., 2023). This means if species are hit by threats like myrtle rust, kauri dieback, or future pests or diseases, we risk losing them forever.
Many of our taonga species exist nowhere else in the world. Their loss would be a permanent blow to biodiversity, whakapapa, and our future.
As climate change shifts the conditions where food and forests can grow, we need new tools and technologies. But those tools require a baseline understanding of species diversity, and they work best when supported by well-maintained seed collections.
Where We Stand
At Te Tira Whakamātaki, our vision is to establish a national seed (and bio) bank dedicated to protecting the diversity of Aotearoa’s unique and sacred plant (& animal) life.
We want to ensure our mokopuna can walk through the same ngahere, taste the same fruits, and experience the same connection to taiao that we do today, and our ancestors did yesterday.
Seeds are more than just the beginning of life; they are the continuation of it.