Local treasures: producers welcomed visitors at their booths

(Photo: Pixabay)

On Sunday, October 19, producers and manufactories welcomed more than 1,500 visitors free of charge all day long, without prior registration, who could see the daily work of the farms and their food production processes.

A different topic awaited the guests at each booth

Some booths focused on traditional farm life, cheese making, or distilling, horseradish, beekeeping, oven-baked sourdough bread, the world of herbs, and others focused on the production of extruded products. Guests could connect with the themes through experience programs, and all ages could find treasured experiences. Petting animals and feeding pets were popular among children, and they could also make wax candles, paint textiles with medicinal plants, and make snails. The children were also able to gain important knowledge, learn about the secret life of bees, or the beneficial effects of spelt wheat. Of course, gastronomic experiences also played an important role, they could taste and buy all kinds of earthly goods, and some even ate their Sunday lunch there. NAK staff kept the goal in mind throughout the program, promoting it, and providing professional support to the visitors: to bring the values ​​of rural life, the power of communities, and the value-creating work of local producers closer to consumers, to strengthen trust in small-scale products, and to put short supply chains in place. The organizers are evaluating the experiences of the pilot program from both the visitors and the producers’ side and are examining the possibility of expanding the program, as a result of which agritourism may also appear among the county’s tourism offerings. The network of experience portals thus established and the agritourism developments may be the driving force behind the strengthening of small farms in the region.

MTI