History of the Faculty

The faculty was established as the Department of Agriculture at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in 1898. It was headed by Professor M.P. Chervinsky.

Mykola Petrovych Chervinsky

The first graduating class of 32 agricultural scientists took place in 1903, with D.I. Mendeleev serving as chairman of the state examination board.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

In 1908, the Department of Agriculture was headed by P.F. Slyozkin, a Master of Agriculture and full professor. In 1919, it was reorganised into the Faculty of Agriculture, which had around 200 students. In the following years, the faculty was headed by Professors V.V. Koltunov and M.F. Kashchenko, who were well-known in academic circles.
In 1922, the Kyiv Agricultural Institute was established at the KPI on the basis of the Faculty of Agronomy (Dean: Professor I.M. Shchogoliv), and by 1923 it had become an independent higher education institution.
Following the construction of the KSAI’s teaching buildings in Holosiiv, the Faculty of Agronomy continued its activities as part of the institute, headed by Professors E.P. Votchal, I.M. Shchogoliv, A.G. Mikhalovskyi, and Associate Professor Y.P. Manoilenko.

During the war, the faculty, along with some of its lecturers and students, continued its work at the Kazakh Agricultural Institute.
The following members of the teaching and student staff were honoured with government awards for their wartime service: M.A. Bilonozhko, I.S. Rudenko, M.I. Petrenko, A.P. Dovbakh, M.G. Gorodniy, M.O. Zelenskyy, O.S. Ustymenko, M.Ya. Palienko, M.I. Goloborodko, V.M. Kaliberda, V.I. Moiseenko, O.G. Yavorskyi, M.M. Mykhailenko and others.
In 2009, the Faculty of Agrobiology was established through the merger of the Faculties of Agronomy, Fruit and Vegetable Growing, and Agrochemical Services and Soil Science.

From 1944 to 2015, the faculty was headed at various times by: Associate Professors Yu. P. Manoilenko, V.Yu. Kalyuzhny, M.F. Khokhol, M.D. Ryzhutin, B.M. Podolich, A.K. Parkhomenko, M.Ya. Dmytryshak, I.O. Antipov, V.I. Rozhko; and professors O. Yu. Barabash, I.M. Gudkov, V.P. Gudzi, S.P. Tanchik, G.I. Demidas, V.O. Zabaluev.
The Faculty of Agrobiology is one of the leading faculties at the university, as well as among the agronomy faculties of agricultural universities in Ukraine in terms of the standard of specialist training, staffing and methodological support for the educational process. In accordance with the State Order and the curriculum, the faculty trains Bachelor’s and Master’s degree students in the specialisations 201 – ‘Agronomy’ and 203 – ‘Horticulture and Viticulture’.
The training of highly qualified specialists (agronomic technologists, research agronomists, researchers in crop breeding and genetics, and researchers in fruit and vegetable growing and viticulture) is provided through full-time and part-time study programmes. Over 600 students study on the full-time programme each year, and around 200 on the part-time programme.
Over the years, the faculty has trained over 11,000 highly professional specialist agronomists for Ukraine’s agro-industrial sector, and 300 for countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. The faculty attaches great importance to establishing links and contacts with agricultural universities in the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Cuba, Russia, Belarus and other countries both near and far abroad.
At the request of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, the faculty’s departments have launched extensive research work to address key issues in the modern development of the crop production sector, fruit and vegetable growing. The research carried out by the faculty’s teaching staff and students is coordinated, whilst some are carried out in collaboration with such scientific centres of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine as the Institute of Agriculture, the Institute of Bioenergy Crops and Sugar Beets, the Myronivsky Institute of Wheat, the Polissya Institute of Agriculture, the Institute of Potato Growing, the Institute of Fodder Crops, and the Institute of Plant Physiology and Genetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; with regional research organisations ‘Elita’ in the Chernihiv, Volyn, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Crimea and other regions.
The team’s key scientific and industrial achievements include the development and inclusion in the State Commission’s regional classification of over 15 varieties and hybrids of winter wheat, maize, buckwheat, fodder root crops and other agricultural crops. Lecturers from the departments have obtained over 100 patents for inventions.
Over the past 50 years, the department has trained around 300 candidates and over 20 doctors of science, who have successfully worked and continue to work as professors and associate professors, as well as leading research staff at their home university and at many other educational and research institutions in Ukraine and abroad, including in the CIS countries, Germany, Poland, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Cuba and China.
Among the faculty’s graduates, the following have earned special recognition: M.S. Demchenko and M.V. Gnatenko, the initiators of the movement in Ukraine to achieve a yield of 500 centners of sugar beet per hectare; G.E. Burkatska, twice Hero of Socialist Labour; Heroes of Socialist Labour A.I. Buvsunovsky, N.N. Bratko, V.M. Virny, G.O. Ilchenko, K.P. Kiselov, M.V. Shiyan, M.P. Pomazan, O.P. Borovyk; Honoured Agronomists of Ukraine – V.M. Vova, O.P. Kolomiets, R.K. Levchenko, I.P. Muzychuk; recipients of the Lenin and State Prizes – V.P. Zosimovich, O.K. Kolomiets, V.V. Morgun, S.P. Zaika, I.P. Chuchmiy; academicians and corresponding members of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine – V. V.V. Morgun, V.F. Zubenko, V.A. Kravchenko, V.F. Saiko, M.M. Kyryk, M.P. Lisovyi, V.P. Hudz, V.G. Lysaniuk.
The honorary titles of “Honoured Worker of Science and Technology” were awarded to Professors V.I. Moiseenko and B.V. Lesyk, and “Honoured Worker of Education” to Professor M.O. Zelenskyi.
The Faculty of Agrobiology leads and sets the standard for teaching and methodological work in the country in the field of “Agronomy”. In the last ten years alone, its academic staff have published over 110 textbooks, study guides, practical manuals and reference books. In addition, dozens of monographs and copyright certificates have been written, around 2,000 scientific articles have been published, and curricula for specialist disciplines have been developed.
Over 150 lecturers, including 25 professors and doctors of science from more than 50 departments at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, are involved in training specialists in agronomy, agrochemistry and soil science, crop breeding and genetics, fruit and vegetable growing, and viticulture.