Guardians of the Grain

During the 900-day Siege of Leningrad in World War II, a group of Soviet botanists at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry faced an impossible choice. They were guarding the world's largest seed bank-tons of rice, wheat, and potatoes that represented the genetic future of global agriculture. Outside, people were resorting to cannibalism. Inside, the scientists were dying of hunger. They could...