Take a tour at any agro conference in Kyiv, and you’ll hear the typical clichés about black soil – the most fertile type of land, a third of which is located in Ukraine – and being the breadbasket of Europe.
But any grand plans will remain pipedreams without major investments into technology, education and research. A partnership between Texas A&M, one of the largest U.S. agro universities, and the Yurieva Institute of Plant Industry in Kharkiv hopes to address part of that problem.
The collaboration is partly driven by plans to produce and
co-license a new wheat product. In simple terms, Texas A&M has
developed a wheat selection to withstand a hot and dry climate,
whilst the Yurieva Institute’s variety can withstand harsh winters.
Together they will cross the best characteristics of each to create a
new and enhanced wheat selection to sell abroad.
But participants in the project also hope it could become a
catalyst to modernize and reform Ukraine’s outdated agrarian
and scientific research centers.
“By inviting experts from Texas A&M – one of the largest
agrarian Universities in the US – it will contribute to scientific
collaboration. Texas A&M will also bring knowledge and experience
in the field of modern agriculture technologies that have not been
well developed in Ukraine,” says John
Shmorhun, director of Harmelia Investments, one of Ukraine’s
largest crop producers.
So what are
the problems facing agrarian educational facilities in the Ukraine?
According to Jean-Jacques Hervé,
who advises
Credit Agricole’s
Ukraine operations on agriculture,
there’s been too much emphasis on quantity, and too little on
quality.
“Every year 40,000 students graduate after 5
years of study, which is many more people than the market can
employ,” he
said.
Ukraine has 28 agrarian universities, according
to Hervé, and the quality of teaching is “very academic and
relatively narrow.” In France, the number is significantly smaller,
with just 9 state
funded universities and 4 privately owned institutions,
each delivering 100 to 200 graduates a year, for
a total of around 3,000.
Shmorhun says “the level of training (in
Ukraine) is high
but knowledge of modern practices needs to be updated. Research and
training centers are needed.” He added further that the best
students don’t necessarily stay in their field and many want to
move to the city to work.
According to Hervé the universities also need
to do more to reach out of private businesses, both domestically and
abroad, to create partnerships and find funding. A small step toward
such cooperation comes with the involvement of Harmelia, which will
begin by sponsoring 1-2
professors from Texas A&M to provide short-term trainings
in Ukraine.
Initially the programs will last for 1-2 months. Given the right
funding however, visiting professors will be able to stay for longer.
But this is only the beginning, the experts note, and in the long
term Ukraine will have to take its agribusiness education to a new
level – not just modernizing facilities but turning research into a
commercial reality. This way Ukraine could become an international
player in solving the issue of food distribution around the globe.
“It’s not
good enough to just do the research; you have to take it to
commercialization,” confirmed Bill
McCutchen from Texas A&M.
Kyiv Post
intern Isabel Douglas-Hamilton can be reached at
[email protected]
