VASKhNIL

VASKhNIL (), the acronym for the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences or the V.I. Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences (), was the Soviet Union's academy dedicated to agricultural sciences, operating from 1929 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1992.

Built upon the model of the Academy of Sciences of USSR, VASKhNIL included not only a body of academicians but also a vast network of research institutions scattered all over the Union, with thousands of researchers and plant and cattle breeders.

History

The Academy operated from 1929 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1992.

In the 1930s–40s, meetings of the academy members ('sessions' of VASKhNIL) provided the floor for debates between Lysenkoists and geneticists. After Trofim Lysenko had taken control over the Academy, it became for about thirty years a stronghold of Lysenkoism. The proverbial among Russian biologists (July 31–August 7, 1948) organised under control of the Communist Party (Joseph Stalin personally corrected the drafts of the Lysenko's opening address "On the Situation in Biological Science") led to a formal ban on teaching "Mendelist-Weismannist-Morganist" genetics (a pejorative label based on the names of Gregor Mendel, August Weismann, and Thomas Hunt Morgan), which was effective until the early 1960s. Soviet plant breeding efforts - largely carried out by the VASKhNIL - were well funded, however not as effective as they might have been. This was partly due to this era of forced Lysenkoism.

The end of the Soviet era in 1991 brought a sudden fall in funding for plant breeding. Then on 4 February 1992, the VASKhNIL ceased to exist and was succeeded by the (russian: Российская академия сельскохозяйственных наук, РАСН), part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Despite some increased funding since 2000, RAAS has continued to be underfunded and so has been understaffed and unable to help farmers across the RF understand and deploy what new cultivars are developed. The parent body was severely criticised for inefficiency and so in 2013 Vladimir Putin lost patience with the state of the RAS. On 28 June, the Russian Government suddenly announced draft legislation enacting the dissolution of the RAS and the creation of a new "public-governmental" organization with the same name. The buildings and other property of the Academy were supposed to be taken under control of a government-established Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FASO Russia).

Also according to the law, the two other Russian national academies—the РАСН and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences—became incorporated into the RAS as its new specialized scientific divisions. Pribylovsky, Vladimir, and Yuri Felshtinsky. 2004 June 27.
Владимир Прибыловский, Юрий Фельштинский. Операция 'Наследник'. Главы из книги
. Retrieved 12 June 2015.

the RAS still operates 42 plant breeding centres, most of which are at least partly involved with winter wheat, but also often other wheat cultivars, barley, rice, maize/corn, and others. Farmers are mostly growing Russian-bred varieties but these are deficient in resistance traits - for example fusarium head blight and root rot on wheat. Even when the RAAS does produce better varieties they are rarely adopted, with seed saving being widespread instead. Certified seed is rarely used.

See also

* Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union
* Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food (Ukraine)
* Science and technology in the Soviet Union
* Lysenkoism

References

External links

LibWorld - Central Scientific Agricultural Library (CSAL)

Russian National Academies
Science and technology in the Soviet Union
Agriculture in the Soviet Union

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