Those who consider themselves real gourmets and fans of organic food shouldn’t miss “goat cheese for dogs”, “eggs for construction” or “live lambs – butcher’s cuts”. Head to the countryside, and such cryptic ads will lure you to try real Czech organic food. While in places such as France and Germany you can happily hop from one farm or shop to another and buy what local families have grown for you, in the Czech Republic, small-scale organic farming is still a long way from mainstream. All of Prague might be talking about organic food, but farmers have to come up with strategies to survive. For the authorities and the mainstream farmers’ lobby here, they are what graffiti is for the National Gallery: strange and dangerous.
It’s Friday evening, and a small farm on a picturesque hill in western Bohemia still seems pretty busy. Ivana Králová, who has run the place since 1996, shepherds us to her herd of horses, so the photographer won’t see the stables under reconstruction. Her tales of hardship seem out of place amid the vivid green fields lit by the evening sun, which is also reflected in a narrow stretch of dammed river below.
“The only customers are people we know personally,” Králová says, with winks and hints. “Selling meat or anything else to a shop is almost impossible. And from the beginning of the year, we can’t even sell live animals to people without farms.” Králová is known in her closed community of friends for selling “eggs for strengthening mortar”. Like the aforementioned specialties, this is a code name that enables her to advertise organic products that she is not officially licensed to sell on the market under existing laws. It took the Agriculture Ministry 10 years to understand how farmers such as Králová struggle. This spring it has finally introduced measures that would make it easier to obtain such a licence. For now, Králová and her “friends” have to eat all of the meat the farm produces. Her business relies on some 200 ecotourists who come every summer to learn about farming and ride her friendly horses, which surround us and nudge us with their heads during the interview.
No signs or arrows point to her place, which is common for all the farms we visited, but local bureaucrats know the way by heart. “The county authorities sometimes check us two days after they issue a new regulation, and then the inspectors penalise us for weeds in the potato field, or if chemicals from neighbouring land trickle in. We have no one to defend us,” Králová says. “But we eat our own food first, so we make damn sure it is alright.”
Králová is not the only angry voice among organic farmers out there; at a goat farm nearby, the owner echoes her words. She asks not to be identified, as if she were smuggling opium and not just making fine goat cheese. After years of fights with village officials and veterinary inspectors, she seems resigned and sells the cheese only to people who personally come to her farm.
That is the only legal way for her now. For those who haven’t given up, there is some hope for the future. In April the government approved new rules that “enable the development of small farms and will lessen the unnecessary bureaucratic burden on them”, Martin Leibl, who oversees organic farming at the Agriculture Ministry, wrote in an email. He notes that the ministry and local officials give out substantial subsidies. And there would be hardly any agriculture without them. However, even those receiving this money question how much benefit it really brings.
‘If there were more customers … ‘
Despite all the media buzz and trendspotting reports, the distribution of fresh organic products is still in its first stages here. The number of organic farms grew one-third over the last year to 1,800. However, acccording to an official Agriculture Ministry statement, consumers appear to lack domestically grown organic products and food, and most of the big processors are forced to turn to foreign suppliers for the basic materials.
While vegetables are becoming more accessible, dairy products can be legally processed only by big plants such as Olma, and it is nearly impossibe to find organic meat. The closest place to find more sophisticated products is Germany. Czechs don’t find them profitable. Organic goods still lack the critical mass of customers, and, because of low quantities, shops prefer to buy from big producers abroad.
“I don’t complain, but if there were more customers, farmers would overcome all the troubles,” says Peter Weidenthaler, who started a successful farm 16 years ago and sells organic vegetables in Uherské Hradiště. “People are not used to eating fresh vegetables. Our regular customers, young mums, would rather buy a half-pack of carrots for their toddler than eat the rest of the pack themselves.” Weak interest is why chains sell only a few organic products and pick the easiest way to get them: importing from big producers.
Even the biggest player on the market, the Pro-Bio company, can relate to this. The supplier imports roughly half of its products because no one produces them here. “Buying organic is a social and preservation matter, not a fitness trend,” the company’s Martin Hutař says. “We don’t even tell customers that it is much healthier: That would sound as if we were attacking traditional agriculture.”
Harvesting subsidies
“On paper, 7% or 8% of the farmland is being cultivated without chemicals, which seems like a lot,” Vojtěch Veselý says, looking over his apple orchard, where his sheep roam freely near the chateau of the baroque town of Valeč. As he explains, the devil is in the details. The No 1 organic product is simple hay. “While there is no special demand for it, meadows yield very nice government subventions because their owners maintain the traditional look of the Czech countryside,” he adds. Grass occupies 80% of the country’s organic farmland and raises the price of properties that farmers such as Veselý would like to expand to.
Veselý and his friend Lenka Navrátilová, both around 30, are the poster children for a new generation of organic farmers. They are such an exception in the small villages depleted of young people that even the regional governor visited to see if they were real. After working on several farms in Britain, Germany and Ireland, Veselý returned to the 2 hectares he had rented from his family and found that farming is less about nature and more about dealing with authorities.
But then, no one goes into organic farming for profit. While the demand for such products may have turned into a health fad, preserving nature and choosing quality are truly lifestyle decisions. “Every month or so, people like us come to visit and ask about land to start their own farms,” says Veselý, who started a nonprofit that teaches children simple things such as how to make honey, cut wool and tell plants apart. “And the good thing is that we don’t strike or block roads,” he adds, in reference to regular protests by mainstream producers.
