CURRENT STATE AND TRENDS IN PLANT BREEDING AND SEED PRODUCTION OF AGRICULTURAL CROPS IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Food security of the country is determined not by simple production of food products, but by the availability of genetic potential in crop and livestock farming, which ensures receiving the necessary amounts of agricultural products for food production. In crop farming such potential is the breeding and seed production of agricultural crops, which are currently in an unsatisfactory state and do not meet the requirements of domestic producers in high-quality seeding material. The objective of this work was to determine the current state of plant breeding and seed production in Russia and the trends in their development. As a result of research it was revealed that at present the greater part of seed stock of sugar beet, sunflower, and grain maize is currently purchased abroad. In the 1990s due to the privatization of agricultural enterprises many seed producing farms changed the direction of production being uneager to engage in the hard selection and breeding work in conditions of insufficient state support. Seed market monitoring showed that at present there are positive aspects related to the resumed selection and seed production both in scientific institutions of the country and in large agricultural holdings that have their own base for scientific development. In the Russian Academy of Sciences there are two departments and five sectors for various agricultural crops uniting 56 research institutes, including 43 plant breeding centers. Over the past five years the volume of imported sunflower seeds and maize has decreased by 15-20%. At the same time, the domestically produced sugar beet seeds are still inferior to the imported analogues in terms of yield and sugar content with their only advantage being the price. State regulation of plant breeding and seed production should ensure a decrease in the dependence of domestic producers on imports of seed stocks and increase the efficiency of crop production.