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Gene Bank problems

Hi, Prairie People,

I receive a quarterly journal called "The Open Country," which reports on
issues related to native grasslands of countries in the old Soviet Union.
julia_kuleshova@mtu-net.ru  I'm not a Russian specialist or anything, I just
sort of fell into this connection.  It has given me more appreciation for a
bit of news I've come by.

The following news article taken off our Texas listserve for prairie and
native plant people is interesting.  I imagine the gene bank reported has a
great many grassland species stored.  And the story of what these gene bank
people have been through over the decades is very compelling.

Lee Stone
Bastrop, TX


Russian Gene Bank Faces Eviction

Keepers of the unique seed collection are fighting the order to prevent its
destruction.

By David Holley
Times Staff Writer


April 27, 2003

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia Scientists here at one of the world's largest gene
banks starved to death during the 900-day siege of Leningrad, as this city
was then known, rather than consume their collection's priceless seeds.

At the time, Nikolai Vavilov, the institute's highly respected leader and
most significant collector, had already been arrested after running afoul
of a quack geneticist who caught the ear of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Vavilov, whose name the institute now bears, died in prison in 1943.

The government-sponsored N. I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry
survived these and other blows, including sharp funding cuts in the early
1990s. But now it is battling a new threat that it claims could hurt its
collection more than anything that came before: a central government decree
ordering it to hand over its two grand but rundown main buildings, located
on one of this city's most picturesque squares, for other uses by the
federal government.

A move would inevitably result in the destruction of a significant portion
of the institute's 330,000 genetically different samples, says Viktor
Dragavtsev, its director, who is fighting in court to block the eviction
order. Many of the varieties are traditional food plants or their wild
cousins from remote places around the world, where it is now virtually
impossible to find or gather new samples.

The collection, gradually built up since 1894, is maintained by the
periodic resowing of crops in special fields and greenhouses across Russia.
It includes several billion seeds most in small packets labeled only with
codes, many of them frozen.

Even if an appropriate new facility was available, the labor-intensive
process of moving the frozen part of the collection while trying to keep
seeds from defrosting would take five to six years, Dragavtsev contends.
Many seeds would be destroyed, and the institute would lose track of the
identity of others, he says.

When these packages are moved, they will absolutely for sure be dropped  and
spilled," he said. "And on a package, there's only a code. It can't be
ruled out that codes will be confused."

Collections like the Vavilov's are a key repository of the genetic
diversity required for the development of new crops with greater resistance
to diseases or pests, higher nutritional value, or other desired
improvements.

"Every day, 250,000 babies are born on the planet," Dragavtsev said. "By
2015, the population on Earth will be 8.5 billion people Gene banks are the
main guarantee of food security in the world."

The latest threat to the gene bank emerged inDecember, when Russian Prime
Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov signed a decree ordering the occupants of four
buildings on St. Isaac's Square to relocate "in order to effectively
accommodate federal administrative offices in St. Petersburg and provide
effective state control over the use of unique historical monuments."

No provisions were made for a new home for the Vavilov institute.

Dragavtsev argues that local officials who hope to make money from the
buildings' conversion were behind the decree.

"I'm not convinced that Kasyanov actually knew that the plant-growing
institute was located in this building when he was signing that document,"
he said.

In fighting back, Dragavtsev doesn't hesitate to cite the institute's mix of
misfortune and great contributions to science. He easily rattles off six
occasions when the institute faced serious blows, starting with the 1930s'
rise of Trofim Lysenko to a position of dominance in Soviet agricultural
science.

Lysenko's ideas about plant genetics were always scorned by mainstream
scientists, but he won Stalin's support with his ideological language and
promises of quick results in developing improved crops ideas that were
enforced through political repression and had a devastating effect on
Soviet agricultural productivity.

Vavilov became the leader of scientists who dared stand up to him.

"Lysenko branded Vavilov as the enemy of socialist agricultural principles,"
Dragavtsev said. Vavilov was arrested in 1940 and died three years later
while still a prisoner. Of about 80 of his colleagues who were also
arrested, half were executed by firing squad or died in prison, Dragavtsev
says.

Meanwhile, invading Nazi forces laid siege to Leningrad.

"The staff of the institute was evacuated to the Urals Fifty staffers stayed
behind at the plant industry institute," Dragavtsev said. "So they  had
packs of seeds right in front of them on their desks. But they didn't  take
a single seed, and 14 of them starved to death. But they managed to
preserve the collection at the expense of their lives. It's a very tragic
story."

Dmitri V. Pavlov, a Soviet food-supply official in Leningrad during the
siege, wrote about the institute scientists in a1965 book, "Leningrad  1941:
The Blockade."

"Hardly able to move their feet, they came to the institute every day to
work," he wrote. "The fate of the collection depended on their
self-control. The proximity to grain and the duty of caring for it in the
name of the future while slowly dying of starvation was inhuman torture.
But by their solidarity and single-mindedness, the Vavilov collection,
which took years to put together, was preserved for science and the future."

Pavlov calculates that 31 institute employees died directly or indirectly of
hunger.

Three years after the war, ideologically driven disaster struck again.

"The Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences had a session where
real genetics was branded as a pseudo-science typical of the bourgeoisie,"
Dragavtsev said. "So the best scientists at this institute were fired. A
number of them were arrested, and it was a tragedy again. It was only
starting with 1957 that the institute began to  regain its authority and
prestige."

Then, in the early 1990s, another blow landed as the Soviet Union collapsed
and funds for the institute were slashed. The United States and other
countries donated money and equipment, such as freezers, to help with the
storage of seeds.

"It's only due to the financial and material assistance rendered by the
United States, Great Britain, Canada, Germany andAustralia that we've
managed to survive," Dragavtsev said.

The next attack, he said, came two years ago, when some St. Petersburg
officials decided to take over a graduate student hostel belonging to the
institute. In describing that battle, Dragavtsev relates a tale only too
typical of the mix of business, politics and criminality across contemporary
Russia.

"Tough guys with close-cropped hair came in Mercedeses and used crowbars to
dislodge the padlocks and break the doors open, entered the building and
took it," he said. "They put in new locks and actually told me not to come
any closer to the building than [80 feet]."

Dragavtsev's deputy, however, was a retired admiral, and the two decided to
fight back.

"So he telephoned and, in a matter of hours, he had two busloads of
marines," Dragavtsev said. "I asked the marines to take all the people who
were in the building at that time the new 'owners' and throw them in that
puddle in the street. And they were thrown out.

"After that, I hired 15 veterans of the Afghan war.They guarded the
buildings for three months We won three court hearings at the court of
arbitration and managed to defend our right to have that hostel."

But Dragavtsev believes that this victory carried a bitter price, leading
directly to the current crisis.

"These guys who tried to capture the hostel realized  it wouldn't be
possible to defeat us just with the hands of thugs," he said. "The small
alligators decided to get the help of a bigger alligator Mr. Kasyanov. They
think that the big alligator can take away these buildings, so they went to
him for help. That's the scheme. That's how it worked These are the same
guys. They're just putting the money in their ownpockets."

City officials reject such charges.

"This decision is taken at a very high level, and I think that everything
will be done in a proper and well-thought-through manner," Valery Nazarov,
chairman of St. Petersburg's committee for managing state property, told
Russia's TVS television.

Local and federal officials also argue the buildings deserve better care
than the current occupants have been able to provide.

But Dragavtsev, who admits that he could never have fought back this way in
Soviet times, isn't convinced.

His appeal is now at Russia's Higher Court of Arbitration in Moscow, which
is expected to rule on it soon. 

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