Director of the VIR named after N. I. Vavilov, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Elena Khlestkina participated in extended meeting Federation Council Committee on Agrarian and Food Policy and Environmental Management. The senators expressed concern about the continued dependence of Russian farmers on foreign seeds of the most important agricultural crops, the FIC press service reports. VIR.
The director of VIR drew attention to the need to introduce tax incentives, compensations and per hectare subsidies for scientific institutes involved in breeding and seed production. “The federal law “On the Development of Agriculture” stipulates that such institutions are equated with agricultural producers, and they can receive benefits, but in fact this is not due to the absence of the necessary by-laws in the vast majority of Russian regions,” Khlestkina said. “But the use of these benefits would allow the institutions to quickly and in large volumes bring the seeds of the developed new varieties to agricultural producers, and more actively develop the system of domestic seed production.”
We are talking about scientific institutes that are engaged in breeding and, at the same time, original seed production of bred varieties, but, unlike commercial seed companies, do not have preferential support from the state at the regional level.
“Scientific institutes found themselves in a situation where, on the one hand, they are state-funded scientific institutions and must develop advanced areas of breeding within the framework of the state assignment,” Elena Khlestkina explained. - On the other hand, so that the developed promising varieties of various agricultural crops do not remain “on the shelf”, scientific institutes are engaged in seed production of the bred varieties, but this is no longer under state orders, but as part of extrabudgetary activities. Over the past decades, such institutions have been successfully fulfilling the function of original seed production, but we have been waiting for tax benefits, that is, the actual fulfillment of the requirements of the federal law, for the fifth year already.”
According to Elena Khlestkina, the implementation of the system of tax incentives for scientific institutions will have a positive impact not only on the field of seed production in Russia, but also on the implementation of the Doctrine of the country's food security.