ANDREJA JAGODIC – Learning Reward

INTRODUCTION

Andreja, along with her husband, is managing Poličar’s farm, which she inherited from her parents. The farm is located between Kranj and Naklo on a level terrain, a kind of terrace. This is where the name Polica (shelf) comes from, and led to “Poličar’s farm”. Their ancestors had been managing the farm thoughtfully and in line with nature, as well as ensuring the farm is economically viable. From 1980 they have, like many others, focused on raising livestock and milk production. A decade later, they upgraded from producing just milk, to producing other dairy products. Poličar’s farm is the most known for award winning dairy goods – from” kajmak” and curd, milk, yoghurt and a rich variety of cheeses. When raising livestock, they stand by the principle of self-sufficiency in breeding - the more fodder they produce, the more animals they have. Their respect for nature is embedded into their entire life. They keep the farm warm with the logs from their own forests and they get electricity from their own solar power plant. All of their products are available on the farm itself in štibelc. For extra income they are running a museum of millstones, one of its kind in Slovenia. Their slogan is: Everything we provide, we eat. Everything we eat, we offer to you. On our table in our store.

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Get to work, connect with the surrounding environment, learn from your own experience, the expertise comes with time.

1. PERSONAL DATA

Name

Andreja Jagodic

Age Range

46 +

Education

Secondary vocational school, program: farm technician.

Occupation

Farmer, conducting supplementary milk processing activities.

2. FARM PROFILE

Address/coordinates

Poličarjeva kmetija, Polica 1, 4202 Naklo, Slovenija.

Farm Area in ha

Size of the estate: 52 ha, (27 ha out of 52 ha processing soil and 25 ha of forest).

Date since when the female entrepreneur owns/rents the farm:

Year of farm takeover: 2008.

Nº of workers on the farms

FULL TIME
Family members	Other than family members
2

PART-TME/SESONAL
Family members	Other than family members
	2

WOMEN
Family members	Other than family members
1, 1-retired mother’s help	1

Farm description

In the year 1994, Andreja married Viktor, which meant the merging of Poličar’s farm from Polica and Mlinar’s farm from Ilovka, which amounts to 52 hectares when combined. Out of the 52 hectares, 27 is farmland. They are raising from forty to fifty cattle, 20 of which are dairy cows. The annual quota allows them to make 150 thousand litres of milk. Along with dairy cows, they are raising calves, around 40 pigs and 400 chickens. The soil is cultivated over a 5-year crop cycle. For the soil to stays alive, they use green manure for fertilization. In addition to potatoes they also produce corn and cereals, in particular wheat, and sometimes trial fields for new varieties of potatoes and peas from the company Agrosaat. Poličar’s farm is most known for and admired for their award-winning dairy goods, which are being produced in their new cheese factory, the old one has been made into a new space for other activities such as meat processing. They also sell eggs, potatoes, corn, wheat, flour and corn meal.

Most produce and products are sold directly at home, some are sold in co-operative stores and festivals where they travel with a trailer that has a special built in refrigerator. They also joined the online portal “Sveže.si”, where they found more and more consumers who were previously unaware of what they had to offer. Along with dairy products, they sell eggs, potatoes and vegetables. In the future, they are going to expand their offer with produce and products from local farms.

Website and social networks accounts

www.policarjeva-kmetija.si/o-kmetiji

3. MULTIFUNCTIONALITY / RURAL CULTURAL HERITAGE

The production of dairy products along with “kajmak” and curd was introduced to the farm by Štefka Pavlin, her daughter Andreja is continuing and upgrading her work with varieties of cheeses, cottage cheese spreads, desserts, yoghurts, whey and innovative specialities: milk bread, lactic cheese with ashes, cooked butter / ghee. Poličar’s farm also offers guided tours of the entire farm including the cheese factory and the museum of millstones. These tours are intended for schoolchildren, the public, tourists. When they discovered a rock, suitable for carving prised white millstones, the famous stonemason family, who lived on the farm, had rented a quarry where they used to make millstones from rocks (conglomerate), for many generations, almost 300 years. To create a lasting memory to a family of craftsman and their esteemed craft, they built a unique outdoor museum of millstones. A few hundred meters from the modern outbuilding. The museum shows conglomerate rock with markings, the workshop and work station, stonemason tools, clothes documents and photographs that tell a story about their work and their products. The unique museum in Europe has been open since 2003.

4. CONSIDERATIONS, TRAINING / COMPETENCES INVOLVED

General considerations
Training/Competences (Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes) especially relevant for the process

In 2008, the Association of Slovenian Rural Youth and the Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry of Slovenia named Andreja the innovative young farmer of the year. Andreja received the title for innovation in the processing of milk into new dairy products and in the introduction of new marketing methods, and was rewarded with 100 hours of work with a John Deere tractor, two hundred euros and a large bottle of champagne. Their specialties include cottage cheese products (such as cow’s cottage cheese, cottage cheese with herbs and cottage cheese in olive oil), and soft cow’s cheese in a loaf and soft cow’s cheese in a roll. Other products include milk bread with pumpkin seed, cooked cheese, soft pepper cheese, smoked cheese and more. They have received a number of awards in the evaluation of dairy products, in particular for cheeses at the Exhibition of Delicacies of Slovenian Farms in Ptuj and also a mark of quality, the highest reward for farm-to-table food. Most products are sold directly at home, in some co-operative shops and inns, and at various events where they sold in a special trailer with a built-in refrigerator.

Andreja gained most of her expertise through organized excursions and courses with the Association of Farm Cheese Producers of Slovenia. Andreja already has extensive experience in the cheese-making field; she has attended two courses in France, Germany, Austria and Slovenia (Naklo Biotechnical Center) and, when necessary, enlists the help of experts from the Association of Small Cheesemakers or from abroad. She is assisted by her sister who is a professional accountant in letters, registrations, permits, taxes, accounting and other bureaucracy. She runs the farm with her husband, and her primary activity is dairy processing. She has learned her entrepreneurial and marketing skills through her experience in observing and monitoring competition and in interconnecting in Slovenia and abroad, especially in Austria.

STRENGTHS
Self-sufficient livestock farm,
Convenient processing location,
Close to the market,
Family farm,
Assistance of parents and children,
Milk processing,
Innovative dairy products,
Home sales, sales products in the cooling van,
Open mill stone museum.

WEAKNESSES
Too little space and surface to expand the scope of activities, lack of interest of family members in continuing the activity.

OPPORTUNITIES
Connecting to the local environment,
Connecting to the local cultural heritage,
Transferring farms and activities to offspring,
Visibility in the wider environment,
Employment.

THREATS
Bureaucratic burdens, tax and other legislation,
Stricter inspection.