Before the war Mrda farmed
600,000 square meters of land. He now grows corn, wheat, sunflowers and
soy beans on about 1.1 million square meters of land. He even plans
expanding onto another half-million square meters as the land becomes
cleared of landmines.
"With globalization,
you need to farm more and more land to compete," Mrda explained.
Mrda is contracted to sell
his crop to a large Croatian food company. It is then packaged and sold
to grocery stores and wholesale markets throughout the country.
"It is only profitable this
way by dong it on a big scale," he said.
Tordinici was the
frontline in the civil war from 1992 through 1996. It was thus heavily
mined, and in many areas remains heavily mine contaminated.
After leaving Tordinici with
the rest of the villagers en masse in 1992, Mrda returned to his home
village in 1998. A year later, in 1999, he was given lease to farm 1.6
million square meters of land recently deeded to the municipality by the
state.
The catch - one million
square meters of the land was mine contaminated and thus un-farmable.
Since then about half of the
contaminated land has been cleared - including 50,000 square meters
cleared with funds from Adopt-A-Minefield.
Josip lives on the farm with
his wife and two children and his 71-year-old mother, who knits wool
booties to bring in extra money.
Mrda and his wife currently
handle the farm with just two full-time employees, but Mrda hopes to
expand to a size where he has to hire more help in the near future.
Watching his 5-year-old
daughter and 7-year-old son play on the family tractor - it is apparent
who might be the first hired as the farm needs more help.
