Plant Protection Service

a state organization concerned with the chemical control of plant pests, plant diseases, and weeds on farmland to prevent or minimize crop losses. In the USSR the central bodies of the plant protection service include the Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Department for Plant Protection, the State Inspectorate for Plant Quarantine, and the Central Laboratory for Plant Quarantine and Forecasts of Pest and Disease Development. The ministry of agriculture of each Union republic has a main department or a department for plant protection, which administers a plant protection station and a republic laboratory for diagnosis and forecasting. Other agencies of the plant protection service include oblast (krai) and raion (interraion) plant protection stations, which cooperate with a network of laboratories and posts to detect and forecast the appearance of pests and diseases. In Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia the functions of main departments or departments for plant protection are performed by republic plant protection stations.

The plant protection service also includes monitoring laboratories, toxicology laboratories, and laboratories for studying methods of biological control. Some plant protection stations have specialized brigades or field teams to control widespread and especially destructive pests and diseases. Kolkhozes and sovkhozes have special personnel who are fully equipped to protect plants.

The principal tasks of the plant protection service include the development of effective methods of controlling pests and forecasting epiphytotics and the spread of pests; various research organizations are cooperating with the plant protection service to this end. The service also has the responsibilities of the timely implementation of protective measures; the prevention of the entry of quarantine pests, weeds, and diseases of plants and seeds into the USSR from foreign countries; the enforcement of quarantine measures within the USSR; and state monitoring of the implementation by all land users of measures recommended for the control of pests, plant diseases, and weeds. The service also has the authority to check on the quality of work done by enterprises and organizations regardless of the government department that has jurisdiction over them and to make sure that kolkhozes, sovkhozes, and other agricultural enterprises and installations strictly observe established safety standards for the use of pesticides.

The following plant protection agencies were functioning in the USSR as of early 1976: 13 main departments or departments for plant protection; 144 oblast, krai, and republic plant protection stations; 1,547 raion (interraion) plant protection stations; 319 specialized brigades and field teams; 144 diagnostic and forecasting laboratories; 53 laboratories for biological control of pests and plant diseases; 96 monitoring and toxicology laboratories; and 175 oblast, krai, and republic quarantine inspectorates with quarantine laboratories and fumigation brigades. A total of 34,170 persons are engaged in plant protection; 13,800 in the state plant protection service and 20,370 at kolkhozes and sovkhozes.

Plant protection services also exist in foreign countries. The organization and operating principles are determined by the social and economic conditions prevailing in each country. In foreign socialist countries, as in the USSR, the service organizes and carries out programs for the control of pests, diseases, and weeds based on a national plan using the equipment and personnel of state enterprises and cooperative farms. In capitalist countries plant protection services are under the jurisdiction of the appropriate ministries—for example, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Forestry in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Ministry of Agriculture in France, and the Department of Agriculture in the United States. Their main function is to advise farmers on matters of plant protection. Private companies do the actual work of protecting crops for a fee; in the United States, for example, there are more than 4,000 such companies.