On 21 March 2020, Jan Micovsky was appointed the new Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Slovakia.
Micovsky graduated from high technical woodworking school and continued his studies at the forestry faculty of the Slovak technical university in Zvolen. He holds a PhD from the Forestry Faculty of the Agricultural University in Brno, Czech Republic. Micovsky worked for nearly 20 years in the state-owned East Slovakian Forests (later Forests of the Slovak Republic), where he grew from a master of the wood harvest to the company's director and spent eight years on the company's general management from 2002. Micovsky also worked in the private sector, particularly in the timber trade.
The new minister's goal is to continue the fight against corruption, especially in forestry and horticulture. Forest conservation and efficient management remain important topics for the new government. Micovsky inherits a challenging goal from his predecessors to increase Slovakia's self-sufficiency in horticulture and food cultivation.
In the light of the COVID-19 crisis, his priority is to support the horticultural companies that creates added value. He will promote the idea of shifting subsidies based on area to grants that support a specific crop.
Source: USDA