Portoroz is a beautiful little town on the Adriatic coast. The weather changed last night as we came in from Austria and we’ve been getting some light sprinkles all morning. Cindy and I are getting ready to take an online break and will be meeting up with the rest of the Congress participants this afternoon. We’ve got a full evening …
Slovenia Minister of Agriculture
Greeting the IFAJ Congress at our first dinner in Portoroz was the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, Iztok Jarc. He had a challenge because just prior to our dinner the weather changed completely and we had a drenching lightning storm. It forced the restaurant to make some major adjustments to the settings but finally we got everyone under cover …
Wood Pellets May Become Farm Product
Our first stop on the Tour III group yesterday was KWB, a company that manufactures biomass heating systems. Basically these are various size heaters using wood chips or wood pellets for fuel. I spoke with David Pock, the man who gave us an overview of their company philosophy and products. It seemed like a stretch to fit this visit into …
Packing Fresh Apples
On my first IFAJ tour stop I spoke with our host, Johann Scholler, Steirerfrucht. They are a fresh fruit packing facility. The main product is apples although they also handle pears and other fruit. Apples are the number one fresh fruit choice in Austria. After we left the plant we did visit a couple of different apple farms. We were …
The Beauty of Ljubljana
I think this is about the most time I’ve ever had in between posts from an event, including in Japan last year. Cindy and I are in Portoroz, Slovenia doing a little bit of catch up work in our hotel room. We were pretty much in and out of buses all day yesterday traveling down here from Graz, Austria. No …
IFAJ President Chops Wood
He’s our outgoing IFAJ President and he’s also Paul Bunyon. No, actually he’s David Markey and this is one of Cindy’s pictures from tonight’s dinner which was held at Schloss Stainz. This is a beautiful old castle where we experienced more fine Austrian wines, some traditional local dance, music and really good food. I think Cindy said that David and …
IFAJ Congress Tours
We saw some beautiful countryside today on our tour outside of Graz. There were actually 3 different tours going on simultaneously. Mine focused on specialty crops (make that apples). Cindy went on one focused on biomass and there was one on mountain farming. We left the hotel after lunch and just got back from our dinner a little while ago. …
IFAJ Star Prizes
This morning the IFAJ Star prizes for writing and photography were awarded. I don’t think any of the top winners were attending though so we had stand-ins to take their awards home. I’ll try to find a list of them to publish later. As with a number of Congresses I’ve attended, it’s looking like our schedule will be pretty spotty …
IFAJ Member Survey Results
During the morning session here at the IFAJ Congress we were presented with the results of an online survey conducted for IFAJ by OEKonsult, Communication & Consulting. One of the presenters was Kristin Allwinger, Business Development. She says they had very good participation from IFAJ members and the goal was to find out how important various topics are to them. …
IFAJ Congress President Franz Fischler
The President of the IFAJ Congress 2008 is Franz Fischler, former Commissioner of Agriculture for the EU. Last year in Japan at the IFAJ Congress he promised us some fine Austrian wines. Tonight he made good on that with a toast at our dinner. Prior to the dinner I spoke to him and he said that attendance exceeded their expectations. …