"By then (the founding of Biocont), my then department head told me he would reassign me instantly. My business (Biocont) kept growing and growing - but I had a written confirmation from the director that I was allowed to run a parallel business. The salaries of government sector employees in the 1990s were such that we were legally allowed to run our own businesses. We happened to step on the toes of the then communist-founded, preferred cooperative JZD Chelčice, which was tasked by decision of the Communist Party's Central Committee to lead the way in biological plant protection. We messed with them because a Dr. De Jeung from BioBest of Belgium contacted us and said: 'I will sell your mites in all the countries where I can, and you will sell my products here.' We shook hands, and the Chelčice folks didn't like that. Their owner was the chair of the fruit growers' union then and he complained to the director general of ÚKZÚZ, saying that Hluchý was making a mess of the market by selling the same products at half the price and so on, and that our director should make things right. Our director called my department head and told him to get me in line. So my boss called me in and said, 'Milan, starting tomorrow you're reassigned to herbicides and you're going to test them.' He knew I hated chemicals, so he put me where I liked it least of all. I said, 'Mr. Director, think about it. There's yet another solution.' - 'What's that?' - 'Well, me leaving tomorrow. If you insist, I will bring you a request for termination of employment by agreement tomorrow, just like that.' - 'But where would you go?' - 'Leave that to me. If you insist, this is what will happen.'"
"Two co-workers came to me on Monday (20 November 1989) and said that we should think about setting up a Civic Forum at work. We talked about it for a while, then we sat down and wrote the first paper saying that we were like a founding group of the OF, and anyone who wanted more information could come to the library in the afternoon after work. A couple dozen people showed up, about a half of all 90, and the founding charter was made official with signatures. We worded it like we were establishing Civic Forum at the Department of Quarantine and Plant Protection of ÚKZÚZ."
"My job was to test the quality of the product. So I bought five batches on the open market, all the ones I could get, and then I tested it. I got terrible results. The product was supposed to have about 20,000 microbial biological units. It was tested on live caterpillars, in various graded concentrations. There's this clever methodology for that, which is ultimately assessed by statistical probit analysis. That was in '84 or '85: few people saw a computer with their own eyes - we had a single one in our entire institute. I went to Prague, learned how to do probit analysis, and we did the testing. We already had the caterpillars in our insectarium. We did it, and sure enough, instead of 20,000 units, it was between 5,000 and 40,000. This is just an insane range - from twice as effective to completely inadequate. There were five batches; two passed, three failed. I ran the tests again, put them on paper and gave it to the director. He looked at it and said, 'Miloš, do you realise what this means? You are saying that Slušovice is basically producing a piece of junk, that their product is not standardised and does not meet the standards.' - 'Yes, I do realise that.' - 'Are you 100% sure that this is true?' - 'Yes.' - 'Okay then, let's do it.'"
"He (the head of the ÚKZÚZ, Miloslav Hauerland) had both sensible, intelligent and warm people in the leadership of the party cell of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, as well as morons. One of those morons attacked him for hiring a guy who was not in the party, violating a directive of the regional party committee, which was true. Plus, the guy refused to join the SSM and was some kind of cultist because he prayed openly before meals. Like, that's a touch too much, boss. So Mr Hauerland called me in about a week or ten days after me joining and said: 'Milan, I have a problem.' - 'So, how does it concern me?' - 'You are my problem.' - 'Oh, I'm sorry, what can I do?' - 'Look, here's a SSM application form, sign it and it's all good.' - 'Mr. Director, I can't sign it.' - 'Why?' - 'Look, I've come to faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died for me, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And I will one day answer for my whole life before Christ. It just doesn't work for me, it doesn't make sense, it's too high a price to pay. It doesn't make sense. I'm not signing that.' You know what he replied? 'Milan, you can't take it so seriously. I'm a Catholic too. My family, my wife and I, my children, we go for a Holy Mass on a Sunday some twenty or thirty miles away where nobody knows us, I go for the Holy Communion, and it's all fine.' - 'Well, yeah, but that's the tragedy of this whole nation. We're all playing a kind of crooked theatre here - and the result is the mess we all live in!' That man has protected me ever since."
Milan Hluchý was born in the Valtice maternity hospital on 25 November 1957 to Ludmila Hluchá (née Kocmanová) and Vladimír Hluchý. He spent his child years in Mikulov and witnessed the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. He was interested in wildlife from an early age, collecting butterflies and moths and attending natural history clubs. His interest led him to the agricultural college where he earned a red diploma and joined the Central Institute of Agricultural Inspection and Testing (ÚKZÚZ) as the head of the biological laboratory. In 1978 he joined the Protestant Church of the Brethren, which profoundly shaped his future life. While in the military, Mikulovice, the StB kept a file on him under the code name “David”. He was suspect of subverting the morale of the garrison with his religious views - a suspicion that was not confirmed. During the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he led a strike committee at ÚKZÚZ and founded a cell of the Civic Forum together with several colleagues. After the coup, he developed a method of vineyard protection using the predatory mite Typhlodromus pyri, which was subsequently distributed by JZD Mikulov in Austria and was a great success. After the collapse of the Mikulov JZD, he founded Biocont laboratory, spol. s r.o. which took over the patent and went on to offer other products. The company expanded into nearby countries and even opened a branch in Vietnam. Milan Hluchý eventually handed over the management of the company to his son Štěpán. In 2022, he received the Silver Medal of the Senate for his services in the field of organic farming. At the time of the interview in 2025, Milan Hluchý lived in Vranov u Brna with his wife and son Jan Hluchý.
