An "unprecedented effort" to protect global agricultural diversity has led to the creation of a facility 130m inside a frozen Arctic mountain that can store 100 million seeds.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened today on a remote island in the Arctic Circle, receiving inaugural shipments of 100 million seeds from over 100 countries.

The deposits range from unique varieties of major African and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea and sorghum, to European and South American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley and potato.

Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg unlocked the vault at the opening ceremony and placed the first seeds in the vault together with African Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist Wangari Maathai.

José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, and dignitaries and agriculture experts from around the globe also deposited seeds during the ceremony.

Built near Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen, the vault contains 268,000 distinct samples of seeds, each originating from a different farm or field. Each sample may contain hundreds or more seeds.

The shipments of seeds secured in the vault today weighed approximately 10 tonnes and filled 676 boxes.

The vault is part of an effort to protect the planet's rapidly diminishing biodiversity.

"This 'fail-safe' facility deep in the frozen rock of an Arctic mountain will secure for centuries, or longer, hundreds of millions of seeds representing every important crop variety available in the world today," the project's creators stated.

"The vault could prove indispensable for restarting agricultural production at the regional or global level in the wake of a natural or man-made disaster."

Contingencies for climate change have been worked into the plan, and the vault rooms will remain naturally frozen for up to 200 years even in the worst case of global warming.

"Climate change and other forces threaten the diversity of life that sustains our planet," said Stoltenberg.

"Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting the fundamental building blocks of human civilization."