Let's not lose the countryside
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer, said musician Frank Zappa.
If we look at his point of view as for what to be proud of, Slovakia is not doing badly at all.
However, the world is changing, and things for which we have a positive attitude and that connect us with the country where we live in, are also changing.
My life has always been associated with agriculture and rural development.
Perhaps it is therefore that I think the main features of Slovakia are more visible in rural areas than in cities.
Moreover, a large part of the urban population had spent their childhood in a village and the values that they learned there, determine their way of thinking during their lives in the city.
Values we hold, views that we share are therefore heavily influenced by the Slovak countryside. This is one of the reasons why we must not lose the countryside.
If we look at agriculture purely from an economic point of view, its share on GDP is not very robust.
However, a merely economic perspective on agriculture is misleading. Agriculture is important because it also performs certain security functions of the state: what we produce is intended for our own consumption.
If we do not grow crops and do not raise animals, we would have to buy these from others. Human history, however, shows that rich are those who have food, water, and over the last one hundred and fifty years, also have energy.
Having nothing to eat and drink is a bigger problem than not owning a car.
Of course, in order to be able to keep farm animals and cultivate various crops, we need the land, technology, skilled people who are willing to fight the elements every day.
But even if you have enough knowledge and experience, and you do everything necessary, you cannot order heat or rain. You can lose all year’s work in an hour or within a few days.
Agriculture is a major gamble in which you bet on things that you mostly cannot control. This fight accompanied us throughout the history of mankind, it's part of our genetics.
However, there are things that we can influence, and therefore we cannot be indifferent to what is happening in agriculture today. Each of us can help not to lose our countryside.
For example, by asking retailers why they do not carry Slovak products. And if they do offer Slovak products, we should buy them.
You will see how satisfied we would be and how well we would prepare our children for a better future.
