Jamin Akimaliev

Jamin Akimalievich Akimaliev (often rendered Jamin or Dzhamin Akimaliev) was a Kyrgyz agricultural scientist, academician, and public official whose career linked Soviet era agronomy with independent Kyrgyzstan's farm policy. He died on 6 November 2026, aged 90. The National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic announced his death.

Born on 5 May 1936 in Ugüt (Ugut) village in Ak-Talaa District of Naryn Region, then in the Kirghiz SSR, he finished school early and graduated from the Kyrgyz Agricultural Institute named after K. I. Skryabin in 1956. After two years as an agronomist at the Karakol state farm he completed postgraduate study (1958-1961) and in 1962 defended a candidate dissertation on fertiliser doses and sugar beet yields under irrigation. He later earned a doctorate in agricultural sciences (1981) and the title of professor (1982).

His institutional career ran from deputy director for science at the Kyrgyz Research Institute of Agriculture (1962-1963) to director of the Kyrgyz sugar beet experimental selection station (1963-1968), then first deputy minister of agriculture of the Kirghiz SSR (1968-1971). From 1971 to 1979 he was first secretary of the Sokuluk District Party Committee, a period remembered for high sugar beet yields in the district's farms. He served as rector of the Kyrgyz Agricultural Institute from 1979 to 1986, directed the Kyrgyz Research Institute of Soil Science (1987-1990), chaired the republican centre for scientific support of the agro industrial complex (1990-1991), and chaired the Kyrgyz branch of VASKhNIL (1991-1992). From 1992 he led the Kyrgyz Research Institute of Agriculture and from 1996 to about 2001-2002 was president of the Kyrgyz Agricultural Academy.

Akimaliev was elected a VASKhNIL academician in 1991, an academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Kyrgyzstan in 1993, and later a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was a deputy of the Kirghiz SSR Supreme Soviet, of the so called legendary parliament of 1990-1995, and of the Assembly of People's Representatives (1995-2000). Awards included the Kirghiz SSR State Prize in science and technology (1976), the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour, the Order of the October Revolution, and the Order of Manas (III degree), together with honoured titles in agriculture and science. He published more than 200 scientific works, including about 15 monographs, chiefly on sugar beet agronomy, seed production, irrigation, and environmental protection. Colleagues also noted songs of his own composition among a wider creative legacy.

His death was marked by the National Academy of Sciences and Kyrgyz press including Kabar, 24.kg, Sputnik Kyrgyzstan, and AKIpress as a major loss for national agricultural science and for the training of younger researchers.