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EAEU countries' agrarian universities to train specialists in breeding and seed production
On March 2, a joint educational online course “State-of-the-art breeding and seed production technologies in the Eurasian Economic Union’s Member States” was opened, with representatives of the agro-industrial block of the Eurasian Economic Commission and leadership of the EAEU universities participating.
The educational course was organized by interested universities coordinated by the EEC agro-industrial block as part of implementing the Memorandum on developing interaction between Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union in the field of training personnel for industry and agro-industrial complex.
“The EEC Agro-Industrial Block has shown interest in raising the prestige of agricultural education and instilling in the younger generation advanced skills and knowledge focused on the practical needs of business. In his welcoming speech, Armen Harutyunyan, Director of the Commission’s Agro-Industrial Policy Department, said that “In order to provide the industry with its own seed material, we need to train competitive breeders and seed growers in our countries”.
More than 100 students and teachers from five universities of four EAEU states take part in the educational course. During training, trainees will learn about the legislative framework for seed production and the approbation and soil control methods common in the Union States, as well as about biotechnological methods in crop production, the possibilities of obtaining virus-free planting material, and many other interesting facts.
The first lecture was delivered by Andrey Drobyshevsky, Head of the EEC Department of Agro-Industrial Policy, who introduced the trainees to the state-of-the-art supranational regulation of seed production in the Eurasian Economic Union.
The course is relevant because of a significant dependence on the import of certain crop type seeds. The annual costs of the EAEU states for the import of seeds amount to more than 1 billion US dollars, or 30% of the import of material and technical resources for crop production. The highest 2021 costs for seeds of agricultural plants in the Union were: sunflower - 268 million US dollars, corn and vegetables - 158 million US dollars each, and sugar beet - 124 million US dollars. At the same time, the use of sugar beet seeds imported into the EAEU from abroad is estimated at more than 90%, sunflower - 60%, corn and rapeseed - more than a third.
For reference
The universities participating in the online educational course include the National Agrarian University of Armenia, the Belarusian State Agricultural Academy of the Order of the October Revolution and the Red Banner of Labor, K.I. Skryabin Kyrgyz National Agrarian University, as well as the Voronezh State Agrarian University named after Emperor Peter I and the Russian State Agrarian University - K.A. Timiryazev Moscow Agricultural Academy.
