Russian scientific centers in the field of agriculture will increase the area under crops and are ready to provide rural areas with seeds of domestic selection, TASS reports.
This news was announced by Vugar Bagirov, director of the department for coordinating the activities of organizations in the field of agricultural sciences of the Ministry of Education and Science, during parliamentary hearings of the State Duma Committee on Agrarian Issues on the topic: “On the implementation of the state program “Integrated Development of Rural Territories”.
“From next year we are ready, we are increasing the area under the seeds of higher reproductions. And next year we plan to reach self-sufficiency in seeds of domestic selection. <...> I am sure that our science will provide us, our rural areas with seeds by 100%,” said Bagirov.
According to him, in recent years, 80 federal research centers in the field of agriculture have been created, of which 30 are interdisciplinary, in 55 subjects of the country. Most of them are in rural areas. At the same time, over the past seven years, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, as Bagirov added, has increased funding for subordinate organizations in the field of agriculture from 6 to 15 billion rubles.
“As part of the national project Science and Universities, over 2 billion rubles were allocated to our scientific organizations to upgrade the instrumentation base. Renewal of equipment [5 billion rubles planned], of which more than half have already gone to our scientific organizations, ”added a representative of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.