One of the highlights of the 2008 IFAJ Congress in Austria was the visit to a traditional mountain farm. All of the participants in that tour just raved about the pastoral scenery on such a perfect day they expected to see Julie Andrews dance up over the hillside singing the “Sound of Music.”
Unfortunately, Chuck and I did not get to go on that tour, as it was sold out immediately. There were three different tour options for the trip, which is really kind of a shame – everyone would have enjoyed getting to see this.
These pictures were provided by one of our Canadian friends, Lilian Schaer of Agri-Food Project Services Ltd. She and Kelly Daynard with the Ontario Farm Animal Council both went on that tour and wrote about it on the blog, Food and Farming Canada.
Lilian wrote: Much of Austria is covered in pastoral mountainside fields – beautifully scenic but largely unsuited for agriculture.
But in the mountainous northern regions of the Austrian province of Styria, some entrepreneurial farmers are not only making a living by farming on the alpine pastures, they’re also revitalizing rural communities and keeping ancient traditions alive.
In Kelly’s post, she began: High up in the mountains, the scenery fulfilled every stereotype I’ve ever had about this country. Cow bells could be heard in the distance. A babbling brook twisted alongside the roadway. Every home was a flower-laden chalet and, to the eye’s delight was mountain after mountain after mountain. I could have stayed there forever.
What made it even more unusual was that we were touring an average mountain beef farm. I’ve been to a lot of impressive beef farms in Ontario but none have the view of these, to be sure.
Be sure to check out the rest of their blog posts to read their impressions about the trip. Thanks for sharing the photos, my friends!
IFAJ Congress 2008 Photo Album
AgWired coverage of IFAJ 2008 is sponsored by: 
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This afternoon 
If you’re looking for something to watch today besides college football, then you might want to tune in to Farm Aid.
I don’t know when the first Quasimojo performance was at an IFAJ event but they’re still going strong.
Our program for the final dinner called for some “traditional dancing.” That’s something I’ll have in a different post.
A year before the IFAJ Congress 2008 we were given packets of pumpkin seeds to plant and then we were supposed to send in or bring photos of our pumpkin plants. I tried but let’s just say growing pumpkins isn’t one of my things.
“Rolling on the River” was the theme of the grand opening event this week in St. Louis of 
This company is most definitely on a roll that has a global focus and the river is their highway to the world. Vice President of Global Marketing Jeff Whetstine says they are selling AGROTAIN technology in 68 different countries. “We started here in the United States, expanded to South America and now we’re going around the world,” Jeff says. “It was a regional fertilizer company up until the year 2000 when Lange-Stegmann purchased the AGROTAIN technology and started AGROTAIN International, their subsidiary.”
Several members of the Stegmann family are actively involved in the operation of Lange-Stegmann and 
Rick explained the river station barge unloading operation portion of the facility. “The majority of urea comes in from New Orleans by barge and St. Louis is the northernmost lock-free, ice-free port on the Mississippi River,” he said. “And so we are able to bring barges up and off load them either into storage, into truck or into rail.” 
While we were in Slovenia at the IFAJ Congress one of our hosts was Ciril Smrkolj who is President of the Slovenia Agriculture and Forestry Chamber, a primary ag group in the country.
The Wine Queen of Slovenia this year is Svetlana Sirec.