Specialists in agricultural science know that the intensification of agriculture is impossible without the dissemination of scientific knowledge and the implementation of scientific research results in the development of all branches of agricultural production. Agricultural researchers are constantly engaged in the search for innovative agronomic techniques, methods, and tools to increase agricultural productivity. This is especially important during critical historical periods when state, socio-political, and agricultural foundations are tested by wars, revolutions, and natural and climatic elements.

The proposed study examines the issues of organization and management of scientific research activities in the first quarter of the 20th century. This historical period is characterized by revolutionary events and attempts at reforms in agriculture. The turning point was the First World War, its logical continuation was the revolution in the autocratic Russian Empire in 1917, which negatively affected the development of scientific research in the agricultural sector.

It has been established that the beginning of the 20th century was marked to some extent by the active development of agronomic science in agriculture, the growth of the role of scientists, agronomists, and specialists in the agricultural industry, and the development of a network of research institutions and organizations. With the outbreak of World War II, the ties between the agronomic community and the owners of the landowners' and private farms were severed. Most agronomists and agricultural specialists were mobilized into the active army, while the rest were involved in the rear structures that served the army, in particular, in food procurement organizations. Forced purchase of grain and food from peasants at low prices broke the ties between agronomists and owners of peasant farms, and hostility arose between them. With the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in October 1917, the latter provoked a confrontation between the «bourgeois specialists» of the government and the peasants. They included scientists, agronomists, teachers, doctors - the rural intelligentsia.

The groundlessness and futility of the new authorities' attempts to collectivize agriculture are substantiated. Peasant protests forced the authorities to accept private peasant farm management, which required agronomic support. It was necessary to launch large-scale agronomic research, to use the techniques, methods, and means developed by researchers to increase the productivity of peasant farms. Research institutions developed programs and research plans in the plant and animal husbandry sectors, took coordination measures, and identified issues and problems that required urgent solutions in various natural and climatic zones of Ukraine.

It was found that a lot of effort was put into restoring ties between the agronomic community, research institutions, and farm owners who needed agronomic assistance in the new economic conditions.

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