biology

Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union)

Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) rather than just read about it. In short: The People's Commissariat for Agriculture, abbreviated as Narkomzem was established in the RSFSR following the October Revolution. When the RSFSR joined the other Soviet republics to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), agriculture was to be an area of policy (along with education, health, etc.) governed exclusively by the individual union republics and Narkomzem remained a Commissariat of the RSFSR…

Key takeaways

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Reference excerpt

The People's Commissariat for Agriculture, abbreviated as Narkomzem was established in the RSFSR following the October Revolution. When the RSFSR joined the other Soviet republics to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), agriculture was to be an area of policy (along with education, health, etc.) governed exclusively by the individual union republics and Narkomzem remained a Commissariat of the RSFSR and other respective Soviet Socialist Republics. Coinciding with the onset of the policy of mass collectivisation of agriculture and the Five Year Plan, it was decided to create a union-level People's Commissariat for Agriculture of the USSR in 1929 which would exist above the republic-level People's Commissariats of Agriculture. Its headquarters building was located at Orlikov Pereulok, 1, Moscow, designed by Aleksey Shchusev in 1928. Narkomzem was reformed as the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Minsel'khoz) in 1946.

History

The commissariat united all republican commissariats of the Soviet Union. It was formally known as the People's Commissariat for Agriculture (Russian: Народный комиссариат земледелия - Narkomzem) was set up in Petrograd in October 1917. Vladimir Milyutin was appointed the first People's Commissar of Agriculture. He was a member of the Council of People's Commissars. The Ministry was abolished in November 1985 with the creation of the State Agro-Industrial Committee (Gosagroprom) which took over the functions of the Ministry for Agriculture, the Ministry for Fruit and Vegetable Production, the Ministry for the Meat and Dairy Industry, the Ministry of the Food Industry and the Ministry for Rural Construction.

Role in offensive Soviet biological warfare programme

For more than four decades, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture managed a large Soviet offensive biological warfare programme focused on the development of anti-livestock and anti-crop agents. The crucial step to initiating a coordinated large-scale agricultural biowarfare effort was the issue on the 7 August 1958 of decree No. 909–426 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the USSR Council of Ministers. It was officially focused on "strengthening work in the field of microbiology and virology". In reality the decree established six specialised research institutes and their affiliated branches under a secret new department of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, the Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-Production Establishments (GUNIiEPU), also known as the 7th (Special) Administration of Minsel'khoz. The agricultural biowarfare programme was given the name "Ekologiya" ("Ecology"), and was also referred to as Problem "E". The Ekologiya programme was composed of two very distinct strands, one focusing on plant diseases and the other on diseases associated with agricultural animals. Despite having signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Soviet Union continued development and production of offensive biological weapons. Under a new, top-secret, national nerve centre, the Interdepartmental Scientific-Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics, there was a major shift in focus to the development of genetically modified biological warfare agents, with wholly new and unexpected properties. Under the direction of the council, there was an intensification of the agricultural biowarfare programme with an expansion of the network of facilities. Some 10,000 scientists and technicians would eventually be enrolled within Ekologiya. One aspect of the programme concerned the creation of reserve mobilisation production facilities for anti-agricultural BW agents. The best documented of these mobilisation plants was the Pokrov Factory of Biological Preparations, which was commissioned in 1979. During his 1993 visit to Pokrov, David Kelly, a UK weapons inspector, is reported to have departed the site feeling this was "the most sinister facility" he had visited in Russia. A number of biological agents were focused on by the Ekologiya network. The anti-livestock pathogens included: rinderpest virus; foot-and-mouth disease virus; Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax), African swine fever virus, African horse sickness virus and sheeppox virus. Anti-crop pathogens studied and developed included: rice blast (Magnaporthe grisea), rice bacteriosis (Xanthomonas oryzae); late blight of potatoes (Phytophthora infestans); and rust diseases of wheat and other small grain crops. There is no reliable information at all with regard to which delivery systems were to be employed to allow the agricultural BW agents developed by the network to be used against enemy crops and herds of livestock. Ken Alibek, who had some limited interaction with the Soviet military agricultural network, claims that the agents were "designed to be sprayed from tanks attached to Ilyushin bombers and flown over a target area along a straight line for hundreds of miles".

List of ministers Source:

People's Commissars for Agriculture Vladimir Milyutin (8.11.1917 - 29.11.1917) Andrei Kolegayev (23.12.1917 - 1.3.1918) Semyon Sereda (1.3.1918 - 1.12.1921) Vasili Yakovenko (1.12.1921 - 6.7.1923) Yakov Yakovlev (8.12.1929 - 1.4.1934) Mikhail Alexandrovich Chernov (1.4.1934 - 29.10.1937) Robert Eikhe (29.10.1937 - 15.11.1938) Ivan Benediktov (15.11.1938 - 11.12.1943) Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev (11.12.1943 - 15.3.1946)

Ministers of Agriculture Andrei Andreev (19.3.1946 - 26.3.1946) Ivan Benediktov (26.3.1946 - 6.3.1953) Alexei Kozlov (6.3.1953 - 26.9.1953) Ivan Benediktov (26.9.1953 - 18.10.1955) Vladimir Matskevich (19.10.1955 - 29.12.1960) Mikhail Olshanski (29.12.1960 - 24.4.1962) Konstantin Pysin (25.4.1962 - 8.3.1963) Ivan Volovtshenko (8.3.1963 - 18.2.1965) Vladimir Matskevich (18.2.1965 - 2.2.1973) Dmitry Polyansky (2.2.1973 - 16.3.1976) Valentin Mesyats (16.3.1976 - 18.11.1985)

Ministers of Agriculture and Food Vjatsheslav Chernoivanov (20.3.1991 - 24.8.1991)

See also Ministry of Agriculture (Russia) Kolkhoz Sovkhoz

References

External links The Governments of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 1917-1964

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union)

In research: Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1991 disestablishments in the Soviet Union, Agricultural organizations based in the Soviet Union, Ministries of agriculture, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) in 20 minutes

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Frequently asked questions

What is Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) in simple terms?

Why does Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union) matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Soviet Union).