When we accepted the invitation to his farm near Hrubý Šúr at the end of March this year, we had no idea how much positive energy this modest, yet highly knowledgeable and expert man holds within himself. Here, on a small approximately two-hectare piece of land next to the Little Danube, right on the border of the Trnava and Bratislava regions, he began over ten years ago to dream his "big dream" of establishing a business within the Agrokruh system, which ensures the cultivation of organic vegetables at the price of conventional – chemically treated ones.
Understandably – Rokosan, as a leading domestic producer of ecological amino acid fertilizers, helps local producers of healthy organic vegetables in the spirit of the company philosophy about ecological sustainability, self-sufficiency, and food security of Slovakia.
Mr. Šlinský definitely does not hide the soul and heart of an Eastern Slovakian in himself. We sensed this during our mutual communication, at the first warm embrace, firm handshake. He does not hide his temperament, which he appropriately transfers into his work in the field. He cultivates fifty-two types of organic vegetables in an unusual way using agrocircles. Herbs and flowers grow in the surrounding beds.
"I grow tasty organic vegetables without chemicals, I reclaim the soil, meaning I return it to its original state, nothing is thrown away, nothing rots like in a supermarket. People take what I grow for prices like in a store," he begins his story and takes us to the small circular fields.
Ján Šlinský embarked on a gentle way of soil cultivation, and the community of his fans and customers is gradually growing. "Please walk on this soil. Do you feel it? Now it is soft, but at the beginning, when I came here, it was terrible," the grower recalls the times when he started his own farm. He wanted to be a gardener from his youth. His mind flies back to childhood, studies at the horticultural school in Čaklov and later at the University of Life Sciences in Brno, then to eastern Slovakia – Pavlovce nad Uhom, where he started at the local JRD – already there he began thinking about how to make work easier for people in greenhouses.
He felt that his idea had further potential. After the regime change in the country, he started crafting, resulting in the first prototype of the agrocircle. It is basically a several-meter-long arm on which an agricultural tool is hung. The arm rotates around a fixed point thanks to an electric drive and cultivates the soil in a circle.
Using agrocircles, he tries to reclaim the soil, that is, to stop its degradation caused by tractor and heavy machinery passes. He agrees with our opinion that we are losing our connection to the soil. In the past, the soil was fertilized with stable manure and the plowing was done by a peasant with a horse. Decades have passed since then, mineral fertilizers and aggressive herbicides and pesticides are used. Farmers rent huge fields cultivated with heavy machinery. Such soil is then threatened by erosion, loss of organic matter, pollution, and compaction.
"We have huge destroyed areas here, while we do not have enough soil to secure the yield. A significant part of the population no longer has anything to do with agriculture," states Mr. Šlinský.
Therefore, on his piece of land, he tries to start rural revitalization in a new way – besides the economic aspect, he also considers the ecological and social sides. And in this effort, Rokosan products will significantly help him.
His goal is to restore trust in domestic ecological products, trust in people. And that unites us. Indeed, it can be done differently.
