The author discusses the question of a divide between the goals of the Slovene agricultural policy and the actual situation regarding sustainable local self-sufficiency. An insight into farmers’ reality helps illuminate misunderstandings between them and the state. The author believes their actions are conditioned by the system as well as by their imaginaries: values, notions, expectations, and convictions about themselves, about farming and about the role of the state. Entering their imaginaries, the author tries to reveal the existing obstacles impeding farmers from acting more efficiently. Farmers expect the state to enable their survival, however, they are convinced that the state does not do anything to improve their operating conditions. The representatives of the state on the other side stress that measures have been adopted to address the situation, but farmers are not responding. The author tries to explain the existing misunderstandings, and show that for an effective agricultural policy we have to first start removing the existing obstacles. In order to achieve that, we need democratization enabling the excluded agents to be systematically included in the policy-making process, and we need discussions confronting different views – not only about the content of the policy, but firstly about the systematic options for entering the policy-making process, and what is more, about the notions, convictions, and expectations of the agents.
