Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics
Seed vault protected by nine people who starved to death. The “Noah’s ark” of agriculture.
During the siege of Leningrad, one of the most devastating pages of the Second World War, nine people died protecting a “library” that had no books. Instead of works, it stored seeds, collected all over the world, and was the first large seed bank on the planet, a direct ancestor of the current genetic conservation collections spread across dozens of countries.
The heroes were food scientists and agronomists. They starved to death, like around 700,000 other inhabitants of the city, but refused to consume the treasure entrusted to them. The decision, seen from a distance, became a symbol: in extreme situations, preserving genetic diversity can be as vital as saving lives immediately because that is what makes it possible to rebuild food systems after disaster.
The modern concept of gene bank, a biorepository where genetic resources, such as seeds, cells or tissues, are stored, is closely linked to the work of Nikolay VavilovRussian botanist and geneticist, fascinated by the variety of cultivated plants, notes a . Vavilov envisioned a global seed “one-stop shop” where researchers and breeders could learn, cross-breed varieties, and respond to famines.
Throughout his life, the botanist organized huge expeditions: there were 115 trips to 64 countries, which resulted in around 380 thousand samples gathered for the Leningrad seed bank. The collection became so valuable that, according to historical accounts, it attracted the attention of German forces during the siege.
Vavilov would eventually die in a gulag, but the vision survived: today, the idea of gathering, preserving and sharing agricultural diversity is at the heart of global food security strategies.
There are currently hundreds of genebanks in the world. Almost all countries maintain their own collections, complemented by international networks and research centers. Organizations like Crop Trust (an entity that financially and technically supports the conservation of genetic resources) work to reinforce these infrastructures: they help to guarantee financing, training, management and technology to keep collections viable in the long term.
Why? Because if modern agriculture is, increasingly, a bet on a few highly productive varieties, genebanks function as collective insurance; a reserve of genetic characteristics that can be decisive when a disease, a pest or an abrupt change in climate threatens dominant crops.
The story offers dramatic examples of what happens when diversity is insufficient. The Great Irish Potato Faminein the 19th century, illustrates the risk of agricultural homogeneity: when many farmers depend on the same type of plant, a single pathogen can devastate crops, economies and human lives. It is precisely this scenario that genebanks seek to avoid. By keeping thousands of strains, ancient varieties and wild relatives of current crops, they preserve an arsenal of traits that can be reintroduced through conventional breeding or modern genetic tools.
An example cited by PopSci is the work of ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas), which manages genebanks in Morocco and Lebanon. In addition to being conservation collections, they function as windows into human and agricultural history: they include wild crop relatives, “primitive” forms and locally adapted varieties, some originating in the first domestications in the Fertile Crescent region. These seeds tell a story of adaptation over centuries. As generations follow one another, plants evolve and adjust to environmental pressures. For climate-stressed agriculture, this is genetic gold: Many conserved varieties were shaped by extreme conditions and may hold clues to more resilient crops on a warming planet.
Genebanks are not just “warehouses”. They maintain an active research and sharing function: researchers and breeders can request samples to study specific traits and develop new varieties. If a team seeks, for example, to increase the nutritional value of wheat or improve drought tolerance, it may find useful genetic material in a collection located in another country.. When the request is approved, the genebank sends samples for study and multiplication. This controlled circulation of material helps accelerate agricultural innovation — and, in many cases, respond to emergencies on the ground.
The genebanks They can also provide old and adapted seeds for farmers to resume production after severe losses. And there is another level of protection: that of duplications.
To reduce the risk of total loss, genebanks send copies of their seeds to other institutions. There is even a model known as “black box”in which the external deposit serves only as a safeguard and the material continues to belong exclusively to the depositor. It’s a way of dispersing risk in a world where a fire, flood, electrical failure or armed attack can render a collection unusable from one day to the next.
Vulnerability worries. Many gene banks depend on constant cold; A power failure can compromise the viability of seeds preserved at very low temperatures of -18ºC, which led to the creation, as ZAP wrote just this month, of vaults like the large one, where permafrost and natural cold offer an extra layer of security: even without power, the ambient temperature helps keep the seeds preserved for long periods.
