On February 22, Dr. Jennifer Allen, Associate Professor from Yale University History Department, presented on “Noah’s Ark for Future Generations” or Genetic Imperialism?: The Dilemma of the Seed Bank in Postwar German History. In relation to her new book, “Insurance Against Total Destruction”, Allen lectured on the legacy of German Seed Banks from the Postwar era, unification and the 21st century from a global context. In conversation in Philosophy Hall with around 20 people in attendance along with a livestream attended by 75, Allen spoke on the success story of German seed banking.
Dividing her talk into three parts, giving a chronological story of the attempt to safeguard genetic information. First, detailing the success story of a formerly East German Seed Bank called IPK, that had a strong influence from Nikolai Vavilov’s Soviet Seed Bank. Now based in Leibniz, it ended up overtaking the West German Seed bank after the unification. Allen mentioned how the postwar period increasingly sought to safeguard agriculture for families. She then told the story of West German Seed Bank’s global success story with research being done with facilities in Costa Rica and Ethiopia. Their seed banks have a focus on crop preservation that can create and disseminate the dangers of crop failures and epidemics. The Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute also employs indigenous farmers to protect their biodiversity in regional areas and contribute to the main bank with community seed banking.
The third part of Allen’s presentation touched on the attempt to safeguard this project of ‘Noah's Ark for future generations’. Here is where we see what is at stake for the project: “The plants of the future will protect themselves” and with that, eternal salvation. Climate change, floods and epidemics that put biodiversity in danger. The dangers of this imply the risk of starvation of the entire food chain. The idea of “Genetic Time” demonstrates this commitment to the slow project of micro-engineering, which can also help fight future famines and crop failures. Allen highlights this gradual project and its reaping rewards for the future: “one cannot put a time limit on the task of plant breeding”.