The Men Who Saved The World
His name was Nikolai Vavilov
Perhaps you’ve never heard of
Before the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Seeds required protection from assault
Germany invaded Leningrad, 1941
Protecting seeds became job one
Refusing to eat seeds, men starved instead
So all of humanity could be fed
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Image: Seeds at the Vavilov Institute, by Mario Del Curto, from The Seeds of the Earth, the Vavilov Institute
More about Nikolai Vavilov and his seeds:
- The men who starved to death to save the world’s seeds, by Rakesh Krishnan Simha
- Stalin vs. Science: The Life and Murder of Nikolai Vavilov, by Peter Pringle
- How Nikolay Vavilov, the seed collector who tried to end famine, died of starvation, from Where Our Food Comes From (Gary Paul Nabhan)
- Nikolai Vavilov’s World Seed Bank | Cosmos: Possible Worlds, television series (episode is 120 minutes)
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Linked to dVerse Poets Pub — Quadrille 127: Planting Seeds where Merril is hosting tonight and asked us to pen a quadrille using the word seed.
Quadrille: A poetic form introduced at dVerse Poets Pub circa 2011. The rules for Quadrille: not including the title, a poem of exactly 44 words using the prompt word or its variant.
Quadrille Defined in a Quadrille
See more quadrille poetry.
Oh, thank you, Ron, for this history of the seed vault! Excellent!
Clever clever. Surely it is a mark of good work when I have to do some research to feel like I can enjoy the whole picture? Good work it is, well done.
Wonderful poem and wonderful topic. Seed vaults fascinate me. Thank you for the read.
This topic certainly needs more than 44 words to do it any justice. You should watch the Cosmos episode about this.
I, too, thank you for preserving the history of those who gave lives to preserve seeds.
Wow Ron, intense! 😮
What a great poem and story to go with it. It is really so great to hear about this!
I didn’t know about this, Ron. Thank you for teaching me something new, in the form of a great quadrille!
Ron, this is so interesting! Did you know about this before writing the poem?
<3
David
Yes, I learned about it a few months ago in the Cosmos: Possible Worlds episode (mentioned above in the additional information section) devoted to Nikolai. When the prompt came in an mentioned the new seed bank in Norway, it sparked my remembrance of this,
I feel a need to expand the poem (without a 44 word limit) and tell more of the story, which I think I will do in the coming days.
looking fwd to it!
Fascinating!
A short poem sometimes packs more of a punch than a longer one – your poem proves that. As Anotherkatewilson says: ‘Fascinating!’
Marvelous bit of seed history. I love it when our poetry is educational as well. Thank you! I’ll be researching more on this subject.
Fascinating! I did not know anything about this. How cool to write an educational poem!
This is fascinating …. 1941 my birth year.
Amazing how he managed to do that… I wonder where we would be without him..
A historical seed! Yes, yes! This is wonderfully encapsulated, Ron 😀
Unsung heroes. (K)
Amazing to even think of it, the sacrifices made.