photo: PrahaIN.cz/Ovocný sad in Libčany after hail
INTERVIEW: After a violent hailstorm in Libčany in Hradec, kilograms of beautiful apples fell in the local cooperative orchard, where they slowly perish. Self-collection also takes place here. Literally, for a few crowns, anyone can pick beautiful apples directly from the tree. “We wanted to build our own cider house, but we got hit by meaningless regulations,” the director of the cooperative, Jiří Pátek, told the PrahaIN.cz editors.
Although the hail only raged for a few minutes, part of the beautiful crop suddenly found itself on the ground. “We had a lot of beautiful apples that were damaged by the hail. Unfortunately we have no way to process. However, quite a few people still come to us for self-collection and the interest is quite decent in our region. It is also because we are known and people are already used to driving to us.
Of course we would welcome more customers. But some people simply do not like the fact that they have to come to us and pick the apples themselves. They prefer to order home delivery of fruit and vegetables from the hypermarket, or they prefer to go to a place where they have everything together. They don’t mind that they are buying unripe apples of far worse quality and they don’t care at all about where they are imported from,” said Jiří Pátek to the PrahaIN.cz editors.
The apple crop was knocked down by hail. Photo: PrahaIN.cz
In that context, he also pointed out that people who live directly near their orchards or in the vicinity are not interested in high-quality Czech apples.
Then the clerk arrived
But people who do not hesitate to travel more than a hundred kilometers come to the cooperative for the fruit.
“It’s very strange. Full buses come to us for self-collection from Prague. But the people who live here and look directly at our orchards don’t come for apples. I don’t understand it and I don’t have an explanation for it,” the director shrugged.
He and his colleagues are constantly looking for ways to new projects and activities. However, often senseless regulations and bureaucracy sometimes stand in their way.
“It’s destroying us. We wanted to build our own cider house in order to be able to process unsold or slightly damaged apples, for example battered by hail and the like. We built a new hall and installed the necessary technical equipment. It turned out that a ministerial official came for an inspection, without whose permission the cider house cannot be operated. He gave us such conditions that we finally concluded that we were unable to meet them. One of the conditions, for example, stipulated that people who will work in the cider house must not work in other operations. So we closed the hall and today it is a material warehouse,” complained the director of the cooperative.
The apple crop was knocked down by hail. Photo: PrahaIN.cz
How can he be a minister?
Although the cooperative is currently prospering decently, Jiří Pátek sees the future of fruit growing rather bleakly. He even claims that some fruit businesses will begin to disappear. “I’m not a very big optimist. I’m afraid that fruit growing does not have a good future. And it won’t last long, a few years at most. If the current situation continues, where there is a shortage of people in agriculture, there will not be sufficient sales and farmers will not have money, then we cannot function for long.
The bad thing is that very few people work in agriculture and they do not represent a sufficient number of voters. It is not a big electoral force. That’s why politicians cough on us. Governments do not care about people living well in the Czech Republic. They only care about staying in their positions as long as possible. Then it is possible for a person who has publicly admitted that he does not know the field of agriculture to become the new minister of agriculture. And he will say that nothing is happening because he has people to do it. That’s ridiculous,” Jiří Pátek told our editors.
“What is happening in agriculture today is appalling and we see it all around us. For example, warehouses of mammoth companies or photovoltaic power plants have grown on the once most fertile fields in Moravia. This is absurd. It’s on the same level as if I, together with our people, closed the cooperative, bought a few Boeings, and instead of growing fruit, we would start transporting tourists to Bohemia,” concluded Jiří Pátek.
2023-10-02 05:36:04
#Selfcollection #locals #dont #collect #Libčany #Hradecky
