I wanted to prove to the cooperative in Žalkovice that I was capable
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Josef Netopil was born January 1, 1941 in Žalkovice na Hané. He grew up as the oldest of three children in a Christian agricultural family of Josef and Anna, née Dostálová. His father was a private farmer up until 1953. Then he lost all his property and joined the collective farm in Žalkovice under duress. Initially he worked as an agronomist but later he only rode the horses there. Because Josef Netopil Jr. was originally supposed to become a successor to his father, he strived to study at an agricultural school in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. Despite some difficulties with his political profile he was admitted there. He could still only do menial jobs in the collective farm in his hometown Žalkovice. When the situation had not changed after his return from military service, he left to Pravčice in 1966 where he got a job as an agronomist in a declining collective farm that he then managed to uplift during the following years. He partook in the farm’s management up until 1989. Together with his colleagues he then established the Pravčice farmer’s cooperative and has been in charge of it ever since. He also built the Museum of Our Grandfathers’s Agricultural Machinery in Pravčice in 2011. In 2019 he lived in Žalkovice. Josef Netopil passed away on April, the 27th, 2023.
