Environmental Lessons of Virgin Lands: Organisational and Scientific Aspects

Abstract

This article considers the reasons for the aggravation of the ecological situation which manifested itself in the wind erosion of soil over vast territories during the mass development of virgin lands in the Soviet Union through the prism of the history of agricultural science. The author refers to materials from central and regional archives, most of which are being introduced into scholarly circulation for the first time; the article also refers to special agricultural literature. The author outlines the main approaches to solving the grain problem in the eastern part of the USSR: the introduction of new territories into agricultural use, on the one hand, and the introduction of new varieties of grain crops into production, on the other. In conditions where the main attention of the state was directed to accelerated industrialisation, scientists considered these approaches the most accessible and realistic. It is substantiated that the subsequent reorientation of science towards selection as the main means of developing agricultural production led to the curtailment of research in the field of soil science and agricultural technology. According to the author, this negatively affected both the process of allocating land for virgin land development and limited the possibilities of science in terms of the operational development of a soil-protective system of agriculture. Later, by the end of the 1950s, the accumulation of virgin soil experience and research by scientists made it possible to propose recommendations to ensure soil protection from wind erosion. However, their implementation was restrained by the predominance of administrative approaches in implementation activities and the associated mistrust of production workers in the recommendations of science. The author concludes that the widespread introduction of a soil-protective system of agriculture became possible only in the second half of the 1960s when the necessary state-legal and organisational-scientific conditions were created for this and administrative “excesses” were eliminated. The development of the entire front of scientific research and the formation of a mechanism for the rapid introduction of scientific recommendations into production are necessary conditions for the implementation of major national economic programmes.