VIENNA, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The "Harvest Festival in Vienna" was held on the past weekend at the Heroes Square in central Vienna. About 300 farms participated in this year's harvest festival, displaying their own agricultural products and local products.
The "Harvest Festival in Vienna" is considered as one of the biggest annual parties of Vienna, comprising of country music, folk dances, and different kinds of delicious food. It is estimated that this year's two-day harvest festival attracted more than 300,000 visitors.
This year's harvest festival had its topic of "food is home". Farmers from all over Austria have brought the results of their hard works. At the year's celebration, they brought homemade bacon, cheese, jam, wine, bread, dessert, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables.
They also cooked a variety of delicious local food at the scene, enabling the visitors to taste the special local food just at the Heroes Square.
Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger, Agriculture Minister Niki Berlakovich and Financial Minister Maria Fekter participated in this year's harvest festival.
They appealed the Austrians to consume domestic agricultural products, in order to promote the sound development of national agriculture, to protect farmer's income and to stabilize their employment.
On Sunday afternoon, this year's harvest festival reached its climax by starting the float parade accompanied by a brass band. Local specialty was mounted on huge floats from dozens of agricultural associations and farms. Farmers' scenes of working were recreated on the floats and fruits of the harvest were thrown to the crowd.
Harvest festival in Austria has a long history, which was a traditional celebration of famers to express gratitude to the god after harvest in autumn of each year. It is therefore also called as "Harvest Thanksgiving."
As time goes on, it has now evolved into a folk festival, a colorful cultural activity and a large-scale platform for agricultural commodities exhibition and transaction. The "Harvest Festival in Vienna" held in September is the biggest of its kind in Austria.
Today, the Vienna Harvest Festival has been not just a platform of displaying agricultural products and promoting sale to some extents, but also become a place of entertainment for all ages and a good place for people to relax over the weekend.
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