While we were playing industrialists and while we were only thinking about how to overcrowd Skopje, so that we could casually pass hot coffee to our neighbors from the terrace, the truth slapped us in the face. It came in the form of an onion. The onion was sold for 90 denars, and the news reached that it exceeded a hundred! Just because we don't have our own onions.

But those who have a little longer memory will remember that ten years ago, onions were rotting in the fields, and revolted farmers were throwing them away because there was no one to sell them to. Farmers also remember that their apples rotted, farmers spilled milk on the streets...

To reach the current price of onion, which has created an unprecedented panic among buyers, there was a long road of mistakes. But if the past can't be fixed, what can be done about the future? Both a lot and a little - the answer is somewhere in between.

The villages were deserted. In them, the houses fell apart. Habits and knowledge are lost. The infrastructure was and remains a muddy road or thin asphalt eaten by those who drive trucks just enough to build a summer house. Half of Western Macedonia has new houses, but with the shutters down. Around them instead of fertile fields – bare meadows.

The east is also empty. These days I'm watching a conversation on TV with a farmer who planted hot peppers in greenhouses and they are ripe for picking. He says that he is barely getting by with labor force. But not from us, but from Albania and Serbia, because our Argats are no longer there. He also complains about the price of peppers, which was much lower than last year. Wherever it is, the spring onion will reach. It will not be a surprise if its manufacturers also complain about the low price. Slowly, we will probably forget about the 90 and 100 denar onions, imported from abroad. But as it turned out, some other "onion" will befall us, and much angrier than this current one.

The authorities repeatedly say that they show great concern for farmers. VMRO-DPMNE (when it was in power) set the standards with the millions of subsidy amounts. In 2006, 18 million euros were set aside for subsidies (an unprecedented amount until then), the next 27 million, in 2008 – 45 million euros, and so every year the sums were bigger and bigger, so that the current Government is proud to say that this year for subsidies almost 120 million euros will be allocated to farmers. But the key question is what was achieved with the money that all citizens gave through the budgets for the development of agriculture? The very fact that the dependence on imported food is increasing at the same time gives the answer. The answer is also in the court proceedings for misuse of subsidies by dozens of farmers, but also by civil servants.

This year, as the Minister of Agriculture Ljupco Nikolovski announced, we are starting with the biggest agricultural reform in history. Farmers will receive money in advance, in advance, to be able to produce, the entire domestic production will remain at home, in our facilities, and for the first time we are also starting with orthophoto recordings, through which we will carry out precise control whether the land is cultivated, which will be key for the payment of subsidies. Nikolovski emphasized that the previous subsidies did not give the expected result. But it is unclear why it took him so long to realize this, and he has been a minister since 2017 (except for the break when he went "on a trip" in the fight against corruption).

The minister now has a new big challenge in front of him – how to save agricultural land before the onslaught of solar power plants. But probably the biggest challenge will be how to get young people interested in agriculture. Agriculture has no alternative. You can do without everything, but not without food and water!