Farmer calls for year-round appreciation of agriculture

Steiermark farmer Heidi Ferstl-Kaufmann says people should appreciate agriculture throughout the year, not just at harvest thanksgiving, ORF Steiermark reported. She says buying Austrian products supports local farms, jobs and future food security.

“It is not something to take for granted that a country can supply its citizens with food produced at home,” Ferstl-Kaufmann said in an ORF Steiermark Saturday interview. She said more consumers could help by choosing Austrian products, strengthening both domestic agriculture and the wider economy.

Ferstl-Kaufmann runs a full-time farm with 55 dairy cows and 45 young animals and has two children. She took over her parents’ farm at 18 and was named a “Farm Heroine” in 2025.

ORF reporter Ulli Enzinger spoke with her at the farm in Trofaiach during harvest thanksgiving celebrations, following a drought summer that Ferstl-Kaufmann’s interview described as one that would go down in history. She said people may take food availability for granted because they see full shelves, while older people who lived through the postwar period remember hunger and having to be frugal.