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Here in Slovakia, subsidies are also an issue. The country has experienced an incredible structural evolution of its agricultural system since the fall of Communism almost twenty years ago.   Twenty years ago, a visit like ours to Slovakia would not have been possible. Under communist rule, our tour guide, Miroslav, today told delegates to the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists’ (IFAJ) pretour that the requirements would have been so stringent that it would have been difficult – if not impossible – for delegates from 16 countries to come together to tour farms and talk shop. But that is exactly what our tour today was all about.
Slovakia is formerly part of Czechoslovakia, which broke apart January 1 1993 following its Velvet Revolution. Its name, to the untrained ear, sounds a lot like that of Slovenia, a former Yugoslav republic in the same part of Europe that we’ll be visiting later on during this trip.
Continue reading 16 countries converge on Slovakia
My fellow Canadian travelers, Kelly Daynard and Kim Waalderbos, and I decided not to miss the opportunity to spend a few days in Paris while making our way to Austria for the start of the International Federation of Agriculture Journalists (IFAJ) 2008 congress. It’s been almost a year since this blog started – coincidentally around the time I was lucky enough to be able to attend the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) congress in Japan. This year’s event will be hosted jointly by Austria and Slovenia, September 10-14. To get in on the action, neighboring Slovakia is hosting a pre-congress tour September 7-9. The posts have been a bit sparse lately – I’d been spending time getting ready to go away for a week of holidays. As anyone who’s been through that knows, that can be time-consuming! And now I am on holidays, spending a week in Arizona. It’s hot and dry here by any circumstances, but especially compared to [...] |   | ||||
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The topic of subsidies is always a heated one in the farming world. Canadian farmers claim the Americans get too much support from their government. The Americans claim they need more to keep up with what the European governments give their farmers…and on and on it goes.
That’s what organizers of the pre-congress tour of the International Federation of Agriculture Journalists (IFAJ) in Slovakia are aiming to prove to the delegates that arrived in this tiny country on the eastern edge of the European Union yesterday.
The great European IFAJ adventure of 2008 started off with a bipartisan meeting of Canada and the United States in Paris.