...And to our right, you will see Bosnia...

Here's the second part of my update from the past week :)  ...and yes, Bosnia is right across the River Sava from Croatia...so I got to see (but not go to) another country while I was in Slavonski Brod...

Oh, AND I got super bored while not wanting to write this in my spare time, so I gave the blog a new look...all I can tell you is I have PhD in Procrastination, in addition to my two B.S. degrees :)

Slavonski Brod
The River Sava is a tributary of the Danube River, and pretty much forms the border between Croatia and Bosnia.  Slavonski Brod is settled right on the Croatian side of the river, and if you look across, you can see Bosnia Brod.  For those of you wondering, "brod" is the same thing as "ford" in English...i.e. to ford the river...it's an area where the river is shallow enough to cross over (for communication, transport, moving goods,etc.) during a good portion of the year.  It's also another term for a boat, but we'll stick with the first definition.  Like I was saying in my last entry, it rained over here for a couple of weeks, so there's been a lot of flooding...the river was still pretty high while I was there--and murky, brown, and littered with branches and whatnot.

Fun Historical "Facts": there have been archaeological finds dating back further than 2,000 years ago (Roman period), but the oldest writing/documents found are from around 500 years ago.  Most of the homes here have an Austro-Hungarian Empire influence in their setup and architecture...pretty cool.  Slavonski Brod is also the location of the important and historical Brod Fortress...
The Brod Fortress is about 250-300 years old, and was underground until about 20 years ago (the beginning of the struggle for Croatia's independence.  The fort is surrounded by channels of water, and is multi-pointed-star-shaped.  They are currently working on reconstructing the fort (to look the same as it used to, but newer looking), to improve its image and increase tourism to the area.

High School Matthew Anthony Reljkovica Slavonski Brod  (Agriculture High School)
We met with the director of this school and learned a little bit about the programs, and then he took us on a tour of their orchards and stables.  This school started in 1959 as the only agriculture school in the area.  It now has about 950 students, and offers 3 different programs: 1-Technical School of Agriculture (agriculture & forestry), 2-Veterinary School, 3-Chemical School (chemistry, ecology, nutrition, geodesy).  There are now a lot more agriculture high schools throughout the country, serving the different areas.

The school operates about 70 hectares that they use for: 12 hectares of orchards, crop and vegetable production, and research plots (which the students are able to utilize), vineyard, teaching botanical garden, greenhouses, stables for livestock, Lipizzan horses, facilities for livestock/horse exhibitions, and many other things.  The school is actively involved in partnering with organizations, companies, and other schools in research and information exchange.  They work a lot with a Dutch company, especially in their greenhouse/landscape/propagation, etc. programs.  It was pretty neat to see a school with a huge agriculture program that really prepares its students for agriculture programs at the university level.

Farm Tours!
Ivan's Farm:
- 130 cultivated hectares to produce crops/forage/grass, which is used to feed all of his own animals, has 400 ton silage capacity
- Started a dairy about 5 years ago with the help of Dukat, but hasn't finished completely, all new buildings, cows, and machinery
- 40-45 Holstein dairy cows, with 20 replacements
- Dairy production is 22-25 liters/cow/day...7-7.5 tons/year
- Operative Program of Development of Cattle Production in Croatia is a program that helps to start up these operations here, helps with credit and loans for producers.
- Ivan borrowed 230,000 euros to start his farm, at ~4% interest, with a 2 year grace period and 8 years for repayment...45,000 euros are paid by the government, so he does not have to pay that back.
PROBLEMS:
- Price: 1 year ago, price for milk was 3.9 kn/l, today it is 2.9 kn/l
- Now he has to pay more to have his milk picked up
- Subsidies: loss of subsidies, the govt. has subsidized Simmental and Holstein cows at 800kn/cow, now they are only supporting Simmental (big problem for Ivan)

Jelas Farm
 The Jelas farm is owned by a company who has multiple farms for various types of production.  This one in particular is for beef production, and has its own cow-calf operation.  It's been in production for 5-6 years, is home to 2,000 cattle on feed and about 700 cows for breeding, and is on over 450 hectares.
- They raise all of their own cows to go into their breeding program.
- They produce about 70% of their own cattle to go into the feeding program and import the other 30% from other Eastern European countries.
- Both bulls and heifers go into the feeding program, but before heifers go in, they assess their needs for the breeding program
- They utilize 300 hectares to produce feed and 150 hectares for pasture (split into 3 pastures...holding 200 cows)
- Cows calve from February-May in stables (6 cows/pen), at 1-2 months old, calves are weaned and put on dry forage, then are moved into groups in the feeding barns up to 500 kilos.

Piec Farm/Community Cooperative
The guys from our MSU group already visited the Piec farm (which we wrote a little about earlier), but since I'm still here, we decided to do a visit for me too.  This is actually based on a protected land area that at one point was a massive wetland/swamp-type of area until the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  It stretches over 204,000 hectares of land (including a LOT of forestland, some pasture, roads, river, etc).  There are about 300 horses (Croatian Posavac...a protected breed- subsidized by the govt.), about 80 cow-calf pairs (for beef), and about 65 dairy cows, and a few sheep and pigs in the mix.

The community has been in a "cooperative" for many years, which is kind of helpful in marketing the stock, but they still have a problem with receiving payments.  Each household pays the first year to become a member, and there are 57 member-households in the community, and they have a cooperative "manager".  They do not pay people to work, but since they are members, they can utilize the vast amount of pasture for grazing their livestock and work together.  It's definitely not the same as cooperatives in America, but they are working on making it better in the years to come.

**I will work on putting up my week 4-5 pictures on photobucket today/tomorrow...just check for a link in the sidebar :)

That is all for my tours this week!  I have Friday-Sunday off to do whatever I need before heading back to Montana on Monday morning!  I hope you've all enjoyed following along with me on my trip!  I'll be in touch soon!

Erin

Slavonia...the rain FINALLY went away!

Yet again, I’ve waited over a week to update the blog…it’s a good thing I don’t give myself deadlines, because I would disappoint myself every time!  For the past five days, I’ve been in Slavonia (another region of Croatia)—in Brod County.  Zoran &; Nina’s families are from the area in and around Slavonski Brod, and we stayed with Zoran’s parents here.

On our trip to Slavonski Brod, we made a pit-stop at Vlado’s (the one who has the bed & breakfast near Ilok) other home so that Zoran could work with his daughter on her PhD thesis.  Vlado took Nina and me on a tour around the area, visiting some of his land, seeing some cities/small towns, and the malting plant there.  In the past couple of weeks, it has rained a lot in this area, and there has been excessive flooding in the villages and fields, and the River Sava has risen to a very high level from the drainage/rain.

**AS ALWAYS, CLICK ON THE COLLAGES TO GET A LARGER, BETTER VIEW!!!**

Vlado's beautiful home...they have their own complete "biker bar" downstairs!

Vlado owns around 100 hectares (250 acres) of cultivated land in both small and bigger parcels around the area (small=1-2 hectares, big=15-40 hectares).  It is split into sugar beets (15 Ha), rape seed (15 Ha), spring barley (40 Ha), and wheat (30 Ha).  The soils around this area are very heavy, so the drainage here is very poor…imagine what happens when it rains for over a week (like it just did) with poor drainage…BUT, they do have a canal system to help with drainage into the River Sava.  For every cultivated hectare of land, the farmer must pay a fee for maintenance of the canal system (although the money isn’t always used for that).

Our next stop was in Nova Gradiska at Slavonja Slod, the only malting company in Croatia.  Vlado is the overall site manager (pretty much president), so we got a decent tour—even though they had stopped production for the month.  The plant holds a total of 75,000 metric tons of barley, 60,000 of which is malt.  Brewing companies in Croatia and other countries make requests of what they would like for their order, and the plant will mix accordingly…in the end around 45,000 metric tons stay in Croatia.  Vlado also works for a company in Hungary, and they are also working on project in India.

flooding, fields, and the malting plant

After our tour of the malting plant, we headed to Stara Kapela, which is a developing ethnovillage.  Ethnovillages give people an opportunity to see what villages really used to be like in the past, and experience culture, daily tasks and activities similar to how it used to be.  The homes and buildings are built and decorated the same as they were in the past, and the village really is its own being.  Stara Kapela is a new ethnovillage developed through a veteran’s cooperative through the government, giving veterans an opportunity to enrich the community and do something worthwhile.

Stara Kapela ethnovillage

Saturday was rather laidback for the most part.  I went with Nina and her mother to visit the cemetery (cemeteries here are very different in setup compared to what we usually see at home

...here's some pics from the cemetery...the grave sites are different, and there were some really old graves there too that you could barely see the writing on the stones...

and visit some family around the area, checked out an agriculture fair in Oriovac, and then we had a party late in the evening at Zoran’s parents’ house with a lot of relatives.  We had dried meats and cheese, salads, roasted vegetables, roasted lamb, beer, wine, gamishte (white wine and mineral water…yummm!).  Oh, I went to bed at midnight, but found out that Zoran and his friends stayed up until 4:30 a.m. playing cards!

I will be putting up a blog for the rest of my trip to Slavonia after I tour a few farms on Tuesday…hope you enjoyed!!

Pictures

Hey everyone!  I'm all caught up on putting pictures up on Photobucket...there are three albums, and you can access them from the links on the sidebar of this page!  Enjoy!