GATERSLEBEN, Germany — They did it with primitive computers and jerry-built equipment, without access to technology and information that their counterparts all over the world took for granted--and most likely under the watchful gaze of agents from the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. But since the end of World War II, scientists, researchers and gardeners here have carefully tended a seed bank that most experts rank among the best in the world.
The Institute of Genetic and Cultivated Plant Research at Gatersleben stores a priceless collections of the genetic materials of dozens of crops. The seeds and plant cuttings are in themselves safes for the future--holding the genetic traits of crops that for generations to come will feed the hungry, cure the ailing and clothe the naked.
The institute, with its seed storage, research and planting areas, sprawls through dozens of aging buildings and across lawns and fields. It offers a green legacy to the world that is all the more amazing in contrast to the environmental nightmares bared by the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And now, Gatersleben holds a rare--perhaps unique--political position in the unification of Germany: an Eastern institution predominating over a Western one.
For many tense months, anxious members of the worldwide community of plant resource experts feared Gatersleben would be shut down and its collections moved to its Western counterpart at Braunschweig. Now, it is not only likely that Gatersleben will remain open (albeit at greatly reduced staffing levels), it stands to be the surviving entity if the two seed bank operations are consolidated.
"Very early on in the unification process, we were all quite worried that they would just want to have Braunschweig take us over," said Peter Hanelt, who heads the unit supervising Gatersleben's gene bank. "But that fear, thank God, has been laid to rest. There was a 'Save Gatersleben' campaign, and many of our British and other foreign colleagues . . . wrote letters to the ministry on our behalf."
Seed experts, under the auspices of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, are closely monitoring political deliberations--including some expected this week--that could yet dilute Gatersleben's significance in the worldwide network of seed banks.
Even so, Gatersleben may be better off than other banks in Eastern Europe whose futures are jeopardized by political upheaval and economic tumult. This past summer the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, an agency of the FAO, issued an urgent call for attention to the seed banks of Eastern Europe.
"With the rapid social and economic changes in those countries, the safety of these gene banks is not good, their continuity is not assured. We are at the risk of losing germ plasm of vital interest to the whole world," Jose T. Esquinas-Alcazar, secretary of the commission, said.
Germ plasm is a general term covering a variety of forms, such as seeds, cuttings and tubers, in which a plant's genetic materials can be preserved for reproduction. These collections of germ plasm have many times over proved their worth to the world's agricultural system; farmers, researchers and plant breeders continually return to saved genetic materials to find the keys to improve crop yields, resistance to diseases and pests and tolerance to hostile environments and climates.
Seed banks are the first line of defense against massive crop failures and food shortages, especially as more plant species--and their valuable genetic traits--fall victim to development pressures and environmental disasters. In only a handful of countries, however, are seed banks recognized by the political structures as a critical element of national security. The rest remain largely unknown, even neglected divisions of agriculture ministries--and thus vulnerable in times of political turmoil or economic hardship.
At Gatersleben, Hanelt is awaiting a German government decision--expected today--on whether the institute will be placed under the control of the Agriculture Ministry or remain under the auspices of the Ministry for Science and Education.
Hanelt prefers that it remain as it is and fears that a proposal by agriculture officials to separate its administrative and scientific functions would transform the center into more of a "seed depot, like the Japanese have," than a research-oriented bank.
Pat R. Mooney, a Canadian plant-genetics activist who heads the International Genetic Resources Programme of the Rural Advancement Fund International, said: "Eastern European gene banks are collapsing. . . . These governments won't save them for eternity; they are at the whims of the ministers of agriculture. One slip, and they (the seeds) are dead."
