This is a thing I’ve heard unofficially from a guy in the industry, but I’m not sure how big of a problem it basically is. I mean, I think it’s a big deal, but I would not care to quantify it.
In Ukraine, we have a separate branch of research institutions dedicated to agriculture, forestry, fishery etc. I mean, we’ve got universities where there’s some science being done; the Academy, where most of it happens; and several “applied” branches like the above-mentioned Academy of Agrarian Sciences. The “applied” people are generally not well-integrated into the whole community, which is a problem in itself. One day I took part in an agrarian conference (I was looking for possible collaborations), and this guy showed me a sample of wheat they were working on. He said they have to keep producing new varieties, ever better varieties. Which means in practice that they don’t actually go all out to breed superwheat, they just keep making it incrementally super.
And I just hate this—local culture? Official requirements? I mean, if only they were actually acknowledged as researchers by the overall community (heck, if they were acknowledged as researchers by their own authorities). People would be working, ridiculous expectations would be laughed at, things would be moving along!
Because when they say Lysenko had left a legacy, this is what it looks like.
This is a thing I’ve heard unofficially from a guy in the industry, but I’m not sure how big of a problem it basically is. I mean, I think it’s a big deal, but I would not care to quantify it.
In Ukraine, we have a separate branch of research institutions dedicated to agriculture, forestry, fishery etc. I mean, we’ve got universities where there’s some science being done; the Academy, where most of it happens; and several “applied” branches like the above-mentioned Academy of Agrarian Sciences. The “applied” people are generally not well-integrated into the whole community, which is a problem in itself. One day I took part in an agrarian conference (I was looking for possible collaborations), and this guy showed me a sample of wheat they were working on. He said they have to keep producing new varieties, ever better varieties. Which means in practice that they don’t actually go all out to breed superwheat, they just keep making it incrementally super.
And I just hate this—local culture? Official requirements? I mean, if only they were actually acknowledged as researchers by the overall community (heck, if they were acknowledged as researchers by their own authorities). People would be working, ridiculous expectations would be laughed at, things would be moving along!
Because when they say Lysenko had left a legacy, this is what it looks like.