Ensuring Food Security Means Protecting Pavlovsk Seed Bank

Riddle me this: What's more valuable, global food security or a batch of luxury homes? I know, seems like kind of a no-brainer. Keeping the world fed should obviously come before some new McMansions. But apparently a Russian court thinks otherwise.

Yesterday, a Russian court declared that the Russian Federal Fund of Residential Real Estate could take over the land currently occupied by the Pavlovsk Experiment Station, a global seed bank. By seed bank, I don't mean a building containing drawers full of seeds. I mean a more than 173-acre area housing tends of thousands of living, growing crops, 90 percent of which aren't found anywhere else in the world. As USA Today recently reported, "there are apples from 35 countries, 1,000 varieties of strawberries from 40 countries, black currants from 30 countries, plums from 12 countries and multiple other crops."

Seed banks like Pavlovsk serve a vital role in ensuring food security. For one, they prevent crop varieties from going the way of the Dodo. But perhaps more importantly, seed banks allow scientists to create new crop varieties. For example, by cross-breeding one variety with another, researchers can develop plants that can withstand drought or higher temperatures, an especially important research area considering this whole climate change thing we've got going on. Destroying the Pavlovsk seed bank, then, isn't just ruining thousands of plants in an isolated area. It threatens the future of food across the globe.

In 1926, famed geneticist Nikolai Vavilov started the Pavlovsk seed bank, which is now maintained by the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry. Throughout the decades, the seed collection acquired thousands of crop varieties, which scientists fought hard to expand and cultivate. During the 900-day Siege of Leningrad during World War II, 12 scientists starved to death rather than eat the rare plants contained in Pavlovsk. It's a shame to think that this extraordinary collection that scientists literally gave their lives for could see its demise from a few McMansions.

But it's not too late to take action. Vavilov Institute instantly appealed the court's decision to hand Pavlovsk over to real estate developers. The appeal buys the seed bank about one month of time before any development can happen. President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin possess the power to protect Pavlovsk seed bank. Sign this petition asking President Medvedev to conserve Pavlovsk and stop the destruction of the future of food.

Photo credit: vinodvv aka vcube via Flickr