PROJECT ON-FARM

TITLE OF THE CASE STUDY

Marian’s dairy farm: an example of Slovak family farming devoted to on-farm processing, selling and educational activities

MAIN DATA OF THE COMPANY

Name of the Company

Marian’s farm

Country

Type of the Company

Farming Activity

Direct selling way

SELF – INTRODUCTION OF THE FARMER

Marian Glovatakis the owner of a farm located in a small mountain village in the north part of Slovakia, of around 100 hectares. Marian is a cattle farmer: he has 27 dairy cows, plus some calves. Marian farms together with his wife Monica. They have one employee and occasionally his parents when Marian is away. He periodically has 1 or 2 seasonal workers. Marian and his wife started farming 10 years ago. Marian’s father used to work as a public servant and after liberation from Communism, when collective farming and cooperatives disappeared, he bought two cows and started as a part-time farmer. In 2011, Marian started farming. Marian does on-farm transformation: he produces milk from the 20 dairy cows and with it, he produces traditional products, for example, a cheese called Korbache. He does not have certifications (he mentioned that his natural certification is “customer satisfaction”). He raises the cows on pasture and doesn’t use silage in winter, to get higher-quality products. He sells the milk and products 100% on the farm directly to the customers.

CHANGES / INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS ADOPTED

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, during lockdowns, there were not many occasions to buy on a farm, so Marian and his wife decided to introduce the use of social media. At the moment, they are still using social media for relevant occasions (such as the birth of a new calf). According to him, using social media is a very good method to start promoting products: it is cheap, and you can show the personal story of the farmer. Moreover, they run educational activities on the farm. For example, he collaborates with teachers to bring young students to the farm. They also coach students from agricultural schools and teach them farming techniques. Marian never considered opening a shop on the farm. In his opinion, it brings additional expenses and not enough value. In his view, the best way to sell products is to have good quality. If you have good quality, customers find you.

WHY AND HOW YOU DECIDED TO INTRODUCE  STRATEGY CHANGES / INNOVATIONS

Marian and his wife introduced the use of social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, as a method to promote products and reach customers, even during lockdowns. In their opinion, it is a very useful method for all farmers, especially those engaged with on-farm transformation and direct selling.

WHAT OBSTACLES DID YOU MEET

In his farming activity, Marian faces many obstacles, such as difficult access to land and an administrative burden. He is part of the Young Farmer Organization of Slovakia to fight and take action against these problems. Also, he is currently experiencing challenges due to conflictual relationships with neighbours and with a corrupted agricultural funding agency. Every time there is a problem, he tries to solve it in the most logical way, without being overwhelmed by an emotional reaction.

EVALUATION OF THE RESULTS

Marian admits that he is passing through a difficult moment. He feels sad and sometimes overwhelmed by many obstacles. Sometimes he thinks about stop farming. Once he even announced to his children that he would stop farming and shut down the farm and he saw them crying and convincing him to keep going. This gave him a good positive energy to continue farming. But it’s very difficult anyway at the moment. This is due to conflicting relations with the neighbours and with a corrupted agricultural funding agency. But he has the family’s support, which is the source of his motivation. In his view, that’s the point of family farming.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENT AND WHAT ARE THE PERSPECTIVES IN YOUR MIND

For the future, he hopes to continue farming. He sees two different scenarios: either going in the direction of automatization. He considers buying milking robots and digitalizing the communication with customers (through a scheduling mobile application). In the alternative scenario, he would like to finish building some parts of the farm. In the long-term, he would be happy to see his children taking over the farm. At the moment, he never pushes them but just show them how running a farm works.

FINAL SENTENCES

General Evaluation

Marian’s farm is a beautiful example of a family farming activity. He is strongly passionate about his work, that he does with a vocation to valorise his territory and produce high-quality products. He raises cattle, produces milk and some transformed products like traditional cheese and he only sells directly on the farm. Marian is very honest about the challenges of the farming profession, from the heavy administrative burden to the conflicting relations with neighbours and admits to sometimes think about stopping to farm. Marian sees the challenges as opportunities. He introduces the use of social media during the Covid-19 pandemics, and he found this innovation useful to overcome the limits of a limited contact with customers. In his view, all farmers and especially that involved in direct selling, should consider the opportunities of using social media.

Suggestions for other farmers

According to Marian, every farmer can be successful. If you are already a good farmer, producing high quality products, then for sure you are able to do on-farm transformation and selling. It’s not difficult to transform products, but to produce good quality. Marketing on social media is a successful method for promoting your products. If you have good products, it is a useful tool to market them. But the first step is to produce high-quality products.