He was born on 3 December 1942 in Volog. After primary school in Šmartno and at Gornji Grad he attended secondary school of agriculture in Maribor. Later he continued his studies of agronomy at the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1967.
He specialized in experimental statistics and population genetics at the University of George August in Göttingen. He was also a fellow of the Max Planck Institute for livestock in Mariensee and there he finished his PhD.

He became a full-time professor at the Department for Livestock at the Biotechnical Faculty in 1988. He is also credited for the development of sheep-breeding in Slovenia.

In 1988, he co-founded the Association of Young Farmers and Slovenian Farmers’ Union. He was elected to the Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia on 8 April 1990 and headed the Demos coalition during his term in office.

I.U. Rsi