In June 2026 I spent five days in Eastern Slovakia, accompanied by two Slovak colleagues, on five farms. The farms differed in almost everything \u2013 machinery, finances, ownership, expertise and attitude \u2013 but three things were true of all of them: they grew out of former collective farms, they keep livestock alongside crop production, and they are open to the regenerative transition. That is why I was there. I don\u2019t name the partners or the client.<\/p>\n
The machinery and equipment of the former collective farms were more advanced than what I usually see in Hungary. According to a local agronomist, the reason is simple: whoever doesn\u2019t invest falls out of the competition. Good mechanisation is not a goal but a consequence of market competition \u2013 where a farm\u2019s main income comes from the market, it optimises for production.<\/p>\n
The soils and crops of the eastern region reminded me of Hungary before 2020: bright green maize even without irrigation, a lot of soybean, and farms that build vegetables and herbs into 6\u20138-crop rotations \u2013 while in many places in Hungary only the sunflower\u2013cereal pair is left.<\/p>\n
Slovak farms still have a head start: they can produce enough biomass to substantially raise soil organic matter within a few years, before drought hits them too. In many places in Hungary a vicious circle has already set in: without organic matter there is no good soil structure, but on degraded soil even cover crops struggle to emerge, or the next drought wipes them out.<\/p>\n
Thinking about a regenerative transition? Read more about my consulting here<\/a> if you\u2019re interested. The full report \u2013 on the market, crop rotations and everyday life on both sides of the border \u2013 was published in Parasztvak\u00edt\u00e1s for subscribers (in Hungarian): Agr\u00e1rkalandoz\u00e1sok Kelet-Szlov\u00e1ki\u00e1ban<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2326,"template":"","fw-portfolio-category":[6,33],"class_list":["post-2334","fw-portfolio","type-fw-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","fw-portfolio-category-portfolio","fw-portfolio-category-tanulmanyutak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio\/2334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/fw-portfolio"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio\/2334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2335,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio\/2334\/revisions\/2335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"fw-portfolio-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koczoradam.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fw-portfolio-category?post=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}