Farms

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Time and again on walks in the area around Helfenberg I have been confronted withthe continuous changes happening to the small farms there. Remotely locatedin the hilly landscape of the Mühhlviertel, these are mainly mixed-farming operations, something that is reflected in the architecture of the buildings and the forms of theadjacent plots. The climate is bleak, the soils rather meagre. Arable fields, woodlandand grassland for the grazing of livestock, mostly dairy cows, are characteristic of thearea. Most of the farms are run as secondary sources of income and are passed downfrom generation to generation. However, structural changes have also taken their tollhere: new laws require that stalls and keeping conditions be reorganised, the cost ofnecessary investment is rising and farmers often struggle to find successors to takeover their farms. As such, many of these small farms have been abandoned inrecent times.