Germany returns rare Korean crop seeds taken during Cold War

SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Yonhap) -- Hundreds of seeds for plants native to Korea were returned from Germany after they were taken during the Cold War years, an agricultural institute said Tuesday.

Under a mutual agreement with the Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant
Research of Germany, South Korea's Rural Development Administration (RDA) said it
received a total of 900 seeds of 270 different local crops that are no longer in
the country's seed bank. This is in addition to the 400 seeds received from the
German institute last month.
The seeds include types of cabbage, barley, wheat and beans, which former East
Germany collected from North Korea, then its communist ally, and are now believed
to be extinct, the RDA said. Others were taken out of the country during
Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula (1910-1945), according to the RDA.
The seeds will be preserved at the National Agrobiodiversity Center in Gyeonggi
Province, and those from North Korea, known for strong survivability through
rough weather and barren land, will be cultivated and distributed to other
research organs, officials said.
"It will be helpful for our future research and development of new breeds since
most of the seeds were from crops growing in North Korea," Kim Chang-yong, a
researcher at RDA, said. "The seeds will give us a chance to develop
cold-resistant crops adapted to North Korea."
South Korea was given back 1,679 crop seeds from the United States in 2007 and
1,546 from Japan last year.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
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