The Department of Agrarian Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus was created in 2002 by inclusion of the former Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Belarus into the structure of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Today the Department coordinates the scientific researches and practical use of their results in the major areas of scientific support of agriculture: arable farming and plant growing, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, agricultural mechanization, food production, economics and organization of agricultural production.
The main research and development areas of Department centres and institutes are the following^

• Development of the strategy of agro-industrial complex (AIC) development, economic-organizing tools of AIC management; increasing of food safety of the country;
• Creation of high-yielding, high-quality and resistant varieties and hybrids of agricultural and horticultural crops based on the modern scientific studies, economically sound and ecologically safe technologies of plant production;
• Development of the strategy of the rational use of soil resources, effective methods of soil protection against degradation and reproduction of soils fertility based on the alternative and environment-friendly technologies; technological development of technical maintenance, repair and reconstruction of the reclamation systems; development of ecological and toxicological principles of disease pathogens and weeds control by means of modern methods of plant protection;
• Creation and development of new highly productive breeds, types and lines of dairy and meat cattle, pigs, horses and sheep, poultry and fish on the basis of new breeding and biotechnology methods; development of alternative and ecologically safe export-orientated technologies of animal production and veterinary medicine technologies and methods.
• Development of new and perfection of the existing technologies of production, storage and rational use of fodders for animal health provision, realization of genetic productivity and production of ecologically pure animal products of high sanitary quality.
• Development of the automated energy-saving technologies on the basis of modern equipment, techniques and machinery systems for plant growing, animal husbandry and food industry branches; scientific provision of energy-saving technologies; development and production of new types of competitive food products; foodstuffs and food industry equipment certification.

The Department includes 5 scientific and practical centers of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus: Center for Arable Farming; Center for Animal Breeding; Center for Potato, Vegetable and Fruit Growing; Center for Agriculture Mechanization; Center for Foodstuffs including their affiliated institutes and enterprises. Grodno Zonal Institute of Plant Growing, Vitebsk Regional Institute for Agriculture, Institute of System Studies in Agro-Industrial Complex, Polesye Agrarian-Ecological Institute, 4 regional agricultural experimental stations, and Polesye Experimental Station for Land Reclamation and Grassland Farming are also members of the Department. The Department consists of 12 academicians and 19 corresponding members of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. As of January 1, 2009 in the member organizations of the Department there were 6600 workers including 1872 research workers, 95 doctors and 524 candidates of sciences.