Agricultural organizations

Agricultural organizations. The aim of agricultural organizations is to develop and improve agriculture in its various aspects, to organize agricultural labor, to publish professional books and agricultural periodicals, to develop agricultural education, and to help members in the rationalization of agriculture. Agricultural organizations have existed in Europe since the second half of the 18th century. The Imperial Free Economic Society, founded in 1765 in Saint Petersburg, can be considered the first agricultural organization in the Russian Empire. Its activities, like the activities of the Imperial Moscow Agricultural Society, founded in 1819, embraced central and eastern Ukraine.

The Philotechnical Society of Kharkiv (1811–18), founded by Vasyl Karazyn, may be considered to have been the first agricultural organization in Ukraine. It emphasized the need to introduce new agricultural methods in Ukraine. The first purely agricultural organization in Ukraine was the Society of Agriculture of Southern Russia, founded in Odesa in 1828. A similar society was established in Poltava in 1855. Societies of agriculture and of manufacturers of farm machinery were established in Kharkiv, Kyiv, the Kuban, Katerynoslav, Chernihiv, etc. The activities of some agricultural societies encompassed whole gubernias, while the activities of others were only countywide. In the mid-1890s there were close to 20 agricultural organizations (including branches) in Ukraine. Although the agricultural societies were primarily organizations of the gentry, they made an important contribution to the development of agriculture.

When the authority to approve the establishment of agricultural organizations was transferred from the minister of agriculture to the provincial governors in 1898, the number of such organizations increased. It increased even further after the Revolution of 1905 and the Stolypin agrarian reforms. In 1900 there were approximately 100 agricultural organizations in Ukraine. By 1905 the number had increased to 513, and by 1915 to 1,020 (4,700 for the Russian Empire). Most of the societies were local in character and almost all of them were co-operative. They were established usually on the initiative of active Ukrainian members of co-operatives or zemstvos. In contrast to the agricultural organizations with a wider scope, the local societies served primarily the needs of the peasantry. Agricultural organizations that were not co-operative declined during the First World War and were eventually abolished by the Soviet government. Agricultural co-operatives grew rapidly in 1917–19 and during the New Economic Policy period (after declining under War Communism).

Western Ukraine. The oldest agricultural organization in Galicia was the Galician Agricultural Society, founded in 1829 in Lviv. It was to serve the needs of both Ukrainian and Polish peasants, but in reality it came under the control of Polish landlords. For a brief period the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia fulfilled some functions of an agricultural organization. The Prosvita society of Lviv fulfilled such functions for a much longer time (until 1909). The Agricultural-Industrial Society of Stanyslaviv, whose aim was to raise the peasants’ standard of living, was founded in 1882 and existed briefly. The exclusively agricultural society Silskyi Hospodar was established at the beginning of this century. In the mid-1920s it became a leading organization representing the Ukrainian peasantry. Ukrainian co-operatives (especially Maslosoiuz Provincial Dairy Union) continued to work in the area of agriculture. The Patrons of Agricultural Associations existed in Galicia until 1921.

In Bukovyna the cultural and educational society Ruska Besida in Bukovyna and the co-operative association Selianska Kasa served some of the purposes of an agricultural organization. In Transcarpathia the Prosvita society played a similar role.

Volodymyr Kubijovyč

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]