Globasnitz holds Farant festival without a single inn

Globasnitz held its 26th Farant Festival on Saturday, with music and numerous market stalls selling regional products, ORF reported. The festival was created to bring innkeepers and farmers together and boost the local economy. Today, however, the municipality no longer has a single inn, and the number of farmers is also declining.

The last inn closed last year, ending what had once been an important meeting place in the community. Mayor Bernard Sadovnik said the situation was serious because there was no one left to provide food and drinks for visitors.

“Everyone now comes from outside,” Sadovnik said. Without the local associations and volunteer fire brigade, he added, community life would be in a very difficult position.

Festival was intended to support local businesses

Finding successors for businesses is becoming increasingly difficult, according to Hubert Kordez, chairman of the Farant farmers’ group. He said numerous regulations made it particularly hard for small businesses.

“The Farant Festival was created when we established cooperation between inns and farmers,” Kordez said. That was 28 years ago, he said, when the aim was to create new partnerships and strengthen the regional economy.

“Unfortunately, we have now almost reached the point where all the inns have closed and there are only very few farmers left,” Kordez said.

The decline is also evident in the growing difficulty of finding exhibitors offering agricultural products from the region. Farmers have always faced challenges because they depend on the weather and the markets, Kordez said. In the past, a farmer could negotiate a price when selling a product; today, he said, farmers had to be grateful if buyers collected it and paid the price they set.

With almost 15,000 visitors, the Farant Festival provides an opportunity to support agriculture in the region, Kordez said.