Farm heroine from Aflenz
Like a farmer
How do you carry on when your husband and father of three young children is torn from your life? Margret Karelly from Aflenz nevertheless found a positive perspective on life and continued to run her dairy farm - for herself, but also for her children. She has now been honored as a "farm heroine".
A large white sheet flutters in the wind next to the driveway: "Margret - our farm heroine 2024" and a few hearts are written on it. "A friend put it up," says Margret Karelly and laughs. The pumpkins are piled up in front of the farmhouse in Jauring, a district of Aflenz. In the barn, where 16 dairy cows live, a calf curiously sticks its head towards the farmer.
Last Friday, Karelly was honored by the Chamber of Agriculture for her work. She won second place as a "farm hero" in the category of primary production. "I've been running the farm for eleven years now," says the 44-year-old.
It wasn't planned that way. "I was never actually interested in farming," says Karelly, thinking back to her childhood in Seckau, where her parents had a hay-milk farm as a sideline. Her brothers took over the farm and Karelly became a nurse - until she fell in love with a farmer herself.
The three children were two, six and nine years old when a piece of news shook the whole village: Margret's husband Robert Karelly was killed in a forestry accident. "He was 35 years old at the time. He was torn from his life," recalls Margret Karelly.
Women can also drive tractors.
Margret Karelly
Balancing children and work
Despite everything, she decided to continue the business. "I didn't want to take on a burden and hold on to it by hook or by crook. But the children grew up in the stable and showed an interest in it, and I would have needed a lot more childcare otherwise." So her youngest, Julius, slept in the baby carriage while his mother milked the cows.
It wasn't easy, the mother of three thinks back today, "but I wasn't afraid. I never wanted to complain, I just wanted to do my job". Both daughter Anabell - now 20, an agricultural science student at the Boku in Vienna and reigning Styrian Milk Queen - and son Felix (17) were "born with an agricultural gene" and are happy to help out.
Agriculture never takes a break
Karelly is probably the opposite of what is commonly known as an "angry farmer". In the "male-dominated dairy industry", she asserted herself and tried to do as much as possible herself. "Women can drive tractors too."
At the moment, she says, "the system is working well", even if the milk price keeps going up and down. "If you run a farm thoughtfully and economically, you can make a living from it." There is nothing to be gained from complaining. "I can't set an example to the children that everything is bad. I want to do my best for them."
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