By: Dr Andreja Valič Zver
This is the title of the famous essay by Dr Jože Pučnik, published in 1963 in the journal Perspektive. Let us not forget that Pučnik had been sentenced in 1959 to nine years of strict imprisonment. In 1963 he was conditionally released and once again returned to intellectual and journalistic work.
In the study that sent him back to prison, Pučnik set out to understand why agriculture was one of the most sensitive problems of socialism. He spent a long time systematically collecting material and concrete data. In the introduction, he emphasised that agriculture was not an economic problem as such, but that the revolutionary method had turned it into an ideological, political, and social problem. The new authorities saw farmers primarily as an obstacle and a nuisance. Forced collectivisation caused enormous damage, and violence was carried out against farmers. Pučnik demanded greater investment in the private sector and both moral and material incentives to encourage greater agricultural entrepreneurship. He believed that socialist agriculture, built on ideological foundations, would never be able to produce enough food and would continue to import grain from the United States.
The journal made quite an impact on the public. The head of the party’s ideological commission, Stane Kavčič, also took an interest in Perspektive, labelling Pučnik a “neo‑White Guardist,” meaning a class enemy. Yet despite the threats, Pučnik continued to defy the regime.
With Pučnik in mind, let us move to the present. A few days ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed the notorious Mercosur trade agreement, which merely continues the hostile policy toward European agriculture initiated by the infamous former Commission vice‑president, the socialist Frans Timmermans. A decade ago, the urban political elite drafted a new programme for European agriculture that caused enormous damage. Several million (!) farms were forced to shut down (more than 7,000 in Slovenia alone), which naturally meant reduced agricultural production and, consequently, rising food prices. The EU is therefore forced to import lower‑quality food. An additional problem for the agricultural sector is the lack of young farm successors – barely five percent are under the age of 35. How can the EU claim to safeguard the Common Agricultural Policy when it loses a third of its farms in just one decade?
But even in the post‑Timmermans era, things are getting worse. The current Commission has proposed 80 billion euros less in budget funding for the next financial framework (from 380 down to 300 billion). Compared to the 1980s, this is three times less. This could even lead to hunger on European soil.
Yet the Commission President pays no attention to this. She still relies on the left‑wing paradigm that meat – especially beef and pork – must be minimised on the menu, and that such production should be moved to third countries (while we would produce laboratory food such as synthetic meat, worms, insects, and similar creatures). The paradox is that Timmermans, the notorious architect of the new agricultural policy and the changed dietary model, was reportedly unable to give up the traditional menu, which allegedly caused him serious health problems.