From 2 employees to the network of 600 cooperatives

A partner, a cooperative, which can certainly serve to anyone as an example of what should be done and how it should be done when agriculture is in question, is the company Agro-selo in Bačko Gradište. Agro-selo has operated since 1995, and its founder and owner is Mr. Đorđe Kozarski. He was engaged in farming much earlier, but 19 years ago he decided to start an independent agriculture business. Every start is difficult, so Đorđe started running his company with only 2-3 persons who helped him, but using small steps he has made it a company that now works with 600-700 co-operative farmers, and the land he cultivates, stretching over 5,000 ha, is mostly covered with soybean, maize, wheat, sunflower, and vegetables.

As Đorđe says: “Farmers who were in the production of vegetables provided irrigation systems, started that business, and have done so until today. I cannot say that they are satisfied since prices are moving very little each year, and the price of raw material and investments are rising. Accumulation related to the soybean or the sunflower, for example, is not higher as it should be. Nevertheless, the farmers do not give up vegetable growing since they have invested a lot, and they hope to get better prices in the future. If we analyse arable crops, I can say that we had three years in the past where accumulation on arable crops was very good, however this was not the case with last year due to many circumstances. The previous successful three years encouraged people and they entered into investments. Unfortunately, the prices dropped while the price of the raw material remained the same or increased, the accumulation was not as expected, and loans and leasing became due which led to the dissatisfaction of the farmers.”

Agro-selo employs 17 workers; half of them being the members of the family and the rest are trustworthy people who are very interested in how the company operates. The company strives to provide very good working conditions to the employees, good and regular salaries, which contributes to the common success. Đorđe says that his children are going to continue work after him, and now they invest every year in their business in order to be better equipped. “We have 6 silos with the capacity of 400 tonnes each, ground storage of 2,000 m², an agricultural pharmacy, and agricultural mechanisation. We do not own land as a company.”

Đorđe sees the secret of successful, long term cooperation with agricultural partners in their sincere relations. “We fulfil what we promise. Therefore, people work with us for a long time. First, we think carefully what we are going to promise, and only after that we give them a promise of what they can and should expect. For this same reason, we choose who we are going to work with, and one of the reliable companies is Victoria Logistic, which we have cooperated with and trusted in full for years. Before I opened the company, I was working with Sojaprotein, and security is the main reason. Two-thirds of our work is done with Victoria Logistic. We are only an extended arm of producers, which is the main reason for working with it. It’s been with us for all these years, and we trust it. Each producer knows exactly where its goods have ended up, the payment conditions, what they can check at any time very easily. Good things should not be changed, and I think that nothing should be changed in this cooperation either. Certainly, not everything is ideal, there have always been problems and they will always exist, but the most important is that we have people we can agree with about anything, and every problem turns into a chance and a new challenge.”