The Government of the Republic approved the proposal of the Minister of Rural Affairs to reorganize by January 1, 2023, the state institution, the Agricultural Research Center (ARC), managed by the ministry, and the state research and development institution Estonian Crop Research Institute (ECRI) managed by the ministry. The new institution is called Rural Knowledge Center.
The mission of the Rural Knowledge Center is to be the main research and development institution in its field in Estonia. The aim is to create research and development competence that combines the fields of plant breeding, soil, agrochemistry, environmental monitoring, and socio-economic research.
The purpose of the reorganization is to achieve higher performance of the research and development institution and more efficient use of people, experimental and laboratory equipment, and financial resources. The locations of the structural units of the merging institutions will remain the same.
Established in 1998, ARC (formerly the Plant Material Control Center) operates in the fields of laboratory testing of plant materials, fertilizers, soil, plant pests, etc., field experiments, monitoring and research of the agricultural environment and the economic activities of agricultural producers, and rural networking.
Established in 2013, ECRI (formerly the Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute) deals with agricultural crop breeding, agrotechnology, plant biotechnology, and plant protection research.
Source: Order No. 223 of the Government of the Republic dated 18.08.2022 "Reorganization of the Center for Agricultural Research and the Estonian Plant Breeding Institute."