SASKATOON – The collapse of the Soviet Union has been a disaster for Adolph Stelmakh’s once world-renowned research centre in Odessa, Ukraine.
State support for agricultural research has almost dried up.
The centre can barely pay its utility bills. Equipment replacement is out of the question. Many of the staff of 600 have not been paid for five months, Stelmakh included.
“The situation with science in our country is very sad, a disaster,” he said in an interview last week.
Because of his world reputation as a geneticist, Stelmakh was invited last week to an international wheat genetics conference. A complicated mix of financing from various sources had to be arranged to fund his trip.
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Back home, in the area once considered the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, things are grim.
A decade ago, the Odessa Plant Breeding and Genetics Institute benefitted from the Soviet policy of devoting between 1.5 percent and three percent of budget to science.
The newly independent Ukraine allocates just a fraction of that.
“Ten years ago, in U.S. dollars, we had a budget of $7 million,” he said. “Now, it is $600,000. It is not enough for research. It is not enough for expenses. Sometimes, it is not even enough for salaries.”
He said the research centre raises some additional funds in payments from research stations, which use its varieties.
But the research effort is declining.
Falling down
“We used to be an institute on a level with the best institutes in the world,” said Stelmakh. “Now, we are falling down. We do not have the equipment needed. All we have is our brains.”
He paused and laughed. “We have abilities but no possibilities.”
