International market, farmers are working more for less and less reward. But there are solutions - as we heard at the county council in Eberndorf.
Photo © PraprotnigBezirkstag the farmer: Chamber Office Director Miklos spoke about freedom of movement "in the rat race"
Idyllic farmers life never was. But while her grandfather suffered from the economic shortages, makes today's farmers to create a surplus of goods - for over-production means price pressures.
"Many regions - such as in the Alps -. Can it not longer as a farmer must take to the price of a service, you have no influence" named Hans Mikl, Chamber Office Director of the Chamber of Agriculture, in yesterday Bezirksbildungstag in the agricultural school Eberndorf a dismal picture of farmers in the rat race. Help comes from the public sector: "Over 50 percent of the income of a farmer on average, public funds," said Miklos. It was thus "the mercy of the good of society." That it can afford in the district Völkermarkt hardly anyone to be full-time farmer, also shows the statistics: In international market, there are about 1,500 companies that are actively engaged in agriculture, 1,000 of whom are part-time farmers. They need a farmer business plan as well.
"No Purchase!
The proposal Mikls to go to the sideline acknowledged, a farmer from the audience with the words: "Full employment - part-time - not a purchase!" Miklos also proposed to try direct marketing, is dismissed, "This is easily said, but if you live at the end of the world, who is to come here?" But after all those present, it is clear that moving his court can not order anywhere else cheaper to produce, is - next to the business mantra "reduce costs and produce more" - only one option: to stand out from the others.
And both the Neuhaus Gerlinde Glawischnig - who also lives quite close at the end of the world "- and the farmer's wife Johanna Spittaler Sommeregger then showed how this can be done: with (self-) confidence.
