Agricultural scientific research institutions
Agricultural scientific research institutions. Experimental fields began to appear in Ukraine in the 1880s. The first permanent experimental field was established in 1884 in Poltava. It was followed by the Kharkiv and Derebchyn fields in 1888. Eventually research stations were established: the Plotianska station on Prince N. Trubetskoi’s estates in Podilia (1893), the Ivanivka station on Ivan Kharytonenko’s estates in the Kharkiv region (1897), and the Poltava station (1910). Stations were also established at Kherson, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy, Nosivka, Uman, Smila, Myronivka, Nemerche, and elsewhere. Networks of experimental fields were organized for the investigation of the agronomic problems of larger agricultural areas. The best-known network belonged to the All-Russian Society of Sugar Producers, which consisted of 32 fields, 24 of them in Ukraine. With its center in Kyiv, it functioned from 1900 to 1918 under the directorship of S. Frankfurt, Aleksandr Dushechkin, and others. Networks of experimental fields were established by gubernia agricultural societies: the societies of Kyiv gubernia, Kharkiv gubernia, Podilia gubernia, Kherson gubernia, etc. Later the department of agriculture in Saint Petersburg organized well-funded research stations in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Katerynoslav. (In the rest of the Russian Empire there were only two more stations.) Each of these stations covered a large region with its network of experimental fields. Furthermore, there was a large number of selection stations of a general or specialized nature. Some research was done at advanced schools and a few secondary schools (see Agricultural education). Altogether in nine Ukrainian gubernias there were over 100 scientific research institutions, among them almost 20 research stations and over 40 experimental fields (approximately 50 percent of all fields in the Russian Empire).
After the Revolution of 1917 the activities of the scientific agricultural research institutions were revived and expanded. The work of research stations was co-ordinated through a single plan, and the number of stations was increased. A series of special scientific research institutes was created: for the study of sugar beets in Kyiv, of new legume cultures in Hlukhiv, of grain cultures in Dnipropetrovsk, etc. The work of the various agricultural research institutions was co-ordinated and stimulated by the Agricultural Scientific Committee of Ukraine, and, after its abolition, by the All-Ukrainian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. During the collectivization period, when Ukrainian scientists were persecuted, agricultural research declined, and the All-Ukrainian Academy of Agricultural Sciences was abolished. Some of its functions were taken over by the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
The agricultural scientific research institutions declined again in 1941–5. In the Ukrainian SSR after the Second World War complex research in agricultural production was carried on in most oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR by 20 oblast research stations.
Theoretical questions and agronomical problems that were beyond the oblasts in scope fell under the jurisdiction of specialized bodies such as the Scientific Research Institute of Land Cultivation and Animal Husbandry of the Western Regions of Ukraine located in Lviv; the Scientific Research Institute of Animal Husbandry of the Forest-Steppe and Polisia of Ukraine in Kharkiv; and the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Animal Husbandry of the Steppe Regions in Askaniia-Nova.
Some scientific research institutes were of All-Union scope and were responsible to All-Union agencies. Among these are the All-Union Institute of Winemaking and Viticulture in Yalta;
the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Irrigation Farming in Kherson; the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Corn in Dnipropetrovsk; the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Bast Fiber Cultures in Hlukhiv; the All-Union Institute of Selection and Genetics in Odesa; and the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Sugar Beets in Kyiv.
Republican scientific research institutes included the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking in Odesa; the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry in Kharkiv; the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute for the Protection of Plants in Kyiv; the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of the Economics and Organization of Agriculture in Kyiv; the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute for the Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture in Kyiv; the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Vegetable and Melon Growing in Merefa, Kharkiv oblast; the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Orcharding in Novosilky, Kyiv oblast; and the Poltava Scientific Research Institute of Hog Raising in Poltava.
Scientific research institutes usually had their own research networks. In 1975 there were altogether 151 agricultural scientific research institutions in the Ukrainian SSR. Eleven of these had 11,100 scientists. The accompanying table demonstrates the growth of agricultural institutions and their increasing subordination to All-Union institutions.
The Ukrainian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which directed the work of most of the agricultural scientific research institutions in Ukraine, existed only from 1956 to 1962. Between 1969 and 1991 the Southern Branch of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences was a regional center for agricultural research in the Ukrainian SSR and the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In western Ukraine there were almost no agricultural scientific research institutions until 1950. There were some small research stations attached to agricultural schools (particularly in Dubliany). Until 1914 the Galician Provincial Executive and the Prosvita society established such stations. Between the two world wars research stations were set up by the Lviv Agricultural Chamber in the villages of Zarvanytsia and Shutromyntsi, and by the Silskyi Hospodar society, Maslosoiuz, and Ukrainian landowners (A. Terpeliak, Myron Lutsky, and Mykola Malytsky). (See also Agronomy.)
Oleksander Arkhimovych
[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]