Overview
- The fair marks its 90th edition and 100-year anniversary, opens Friday after an inaugural speech by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and expects roughly 325,000 visitors and around 1,600 exhibitors.
- Agriculture Minister Alois Rainer rules out new surcharges such as higher VAT, a livestock-welfare levy or a sugar tax, citing food prices up more than 30% since 2020, as consumer group Foodwatch urges scrapping VAT on fruit and vegetables.
- Bauernverband chief Joachim Rukwied warns producer prices have slumped, noting pigs at €1.45 per kilogram and grain below early‑1980s levels, and calls for cost cuts and less bureaucracy.
- The government points to fully restored agrardiesel refunds, lower electricity tax for farms, efforts to streamline paperwork, an agri‑export strategy, and notes organic farmland at 11.5% in 2024 with the 30% by 2030 goal deemed ambitious.
- Austria will halve VAT on basic foods to about 5% from July, underscoring diverging policy responses to grocery costs and farm incomes.