I might have said this before but at the risk of repeating myself I will say it again 'Geo magazine is simply a treasure trove of information which I am glad I can get my hands on every month'. This month, I read about Nikolai Vavilov - a Russian botanist who was determined to amass a collection of seeds, roots and grains from world over (and researching them) to save the last remnants of dying species and to save his homeland as well as the rest of the world from famines but ironically died of chronic malnutrition in Stalin's prison. He had inspired so much loyalty among his colleagues and co-workers that despite the 1941 Nazi blockade of Leningrad, some of them died of hunger but didn't touch a grain from the collection. I guess such people are hard to find these days.
Just so that you can get an idea of how valuable his work was, I will quote from the Geo article:
In 1979 it was estimated that four-fifths of the cultivated land in the Soviet Union were growing plants originating from seeds from Vavilov's centres. The yield of these hybrids provided the state an additional 5 million tonnes of food every year.
And the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 75% of all known cultivated plants have been lost since the days of Vavilov. Between 1903 and 1983, 660 of the 688 species of green beans have disappeared from the United States alone, as also 516 of the 544 species of cabbage and 742 of the 798 species of maize. In Mexico, 80% of erstwhile corn species have been lost. In the Philippines, farmers once sowed thousands of strains of rice: today only 2 varieties grow on 98% of the fields.
The article didn't mention what happened to Trofim Lysenko, the man it claims was chiefly responsible for turning Stalin against Vavilov. So I checked on the net. Here's what Wiki has to say about him.
In 1962 three of the most prominent Soviet physicists, Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Pyotr Kapitsa, presented a case against Lysenko, proclaiming his work as false science. They also denounced Lysenko's application of political power to silence opposition and eliminate his opponents within the scientific community.
The Soviet press was soon filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles and appeals for the restoration of scientific methods to all fields of biology and agricultural science. In 1965 Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills (the Institute itself was soon dissolved). After Khrushchev's dismissal in 1964, the president of the Academy of Sciences declared that Lysenko's immunity to criticism had officially ended. An expert commission was sent to investigate records kept at Lysenko's experimental farm. A few months later, a devastating critique of Lysenko was made public. As a result, Lysenko was immediately disgraced in the Soviet Union, although his work continued to have impact in China for many years after.
Lysenko died in 1976.
As far as Vavilov is concerned, he has an Institute of Plant Industry named after him in St. Petersburg.
I guess it's true - what they say about 'getting one's just deserts'!
Just so that you can get an idea of how valuable his work was, I will quote from the Geo article:
In 1979 it was estimated that four-fifths of the cultivated land in the Soviet Union were growing plants originating from seeds from Vavilov's centres. The yield of these hybrids provided the state an additional 5 million tonnes of food every year.
And the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 75% of all known cultivated plants have been lost since the days of Vavilov. Between 1903 and 1983, 660 of the 688 species of green beans have disappeared from the United States alone, as also 516 of the 544 species of cabbage and 742 of the 798 species of maize. In Mexico, 80% of erstwhile corn species have been lost. In the Philippines, farmers once sowed thousands of strains of rice: today only 2 varieties grow on 98% of the fields.
The article didn't mention what happened to Trofim Lysenko, the man it claims was chiefly responsible for turning Stalin against Vavilov. So I checked on the net. Here's what Wiki has to say about him.
In 1962 three of the most prominent Soviet physicists, Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Pyotr Kapitsa, presented a case against Lysenko, proclaiming his work as false science. They also denounced Lysenko's application of political power to silence opposition and eliminate his opponents within the scientific community.
The Soviet press was soon filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles and appeals for the restoration of scientific methods to all fields of biology and agricultural science. In 1965 Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills (the Institute itself was soon dissolved). After Khrushchev's dismissal in 1964, the president of the Academy of Sciences declared that Lysenko's immunity to criticism had officially ended. An expert commission was sent to investigate records kept at Lysenko's experimental farm. A few months later, a devastating critique of Lysenko was made public. As a result, Lysenko was immediately disgraced in the Soviet Union, although his work continued to have impact in China for many years after.
Lysenko died in 1976.
As far as Vavilov is concerned, he has an Institute of Plant Industry named after him in St. Petersburg.
I guess it's true - what they say about 'getting one's just deserts'!
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