Country life comes to the city – Berlin’s Green Week pulls the crowds

Tractors chug along the motorway in downtown Berlin, pigs grunt under the radio tower and the spotlight falls on traditionally-clad farm maidens – once a year country life comes to the centre of the German capital and hundreds of thousands of city folk flock here to smell, taste and marvel at the attractions on offer. January is always the month for International Green Week, the world’s largest exhibition for the food industry, agriculture and horticulture. In 2009 the event opens its doors for the 74th time from January 16-25. 

When Berlin’s radio tower glows green at night it is the signal for intense activity at the trade fair site close to Charlottenburg Castle and the Olympic Stadium. A total of 1,600 exhibitors from more than 50 countries are booked to attend the show. There will be plenty of tasty morsels to sample at the stands but business will be brisk too. More than 400,000 visitors are expected to come and last time around they spent an average of 25 Euros at the show and a further 78 Euros in orders. 

For the trade fair company International Green Week is a useful indicator of the economic mood as the new year gets underway. In 2008 more than 5,000 journalists from 72 countries were registered at the event. There will be loads of innovations to write about this time too since a growing number of manufacturers uses International Green Week as a forum to test new products. To cite the most famous example - in the 1960s Germans in Berlin were the first to get their hands on an imported kiwi fruit. 

This year’s partner country is the Netherlands – a small country but major agricultural nation, as the trade fair organisers point out.  Whether tomatoes, cheese or salad, nearly a quarter of the kingdom’s agricultural products find their way onto German plates these days. In 1951 the Dutch sent the first non-German delegation to the trade show where it erected a vegetable pyramid which was said to have impressed chancellor of the day Konrad Adenauer. 

The bumper calendar of events and conventions this year boasts 300 entries and more than 100,000 industry representatives are expected to be on hand in the capital.

“Berlin aims to be the agricultural equivalent of the economic summit in Davos”, said a trade fair spokesman. This year’s themes are of global significance such as nutrition, agriculture and climate change.

There is one unresolved question however, namely how the event gained its name in the first place. It is not certain but some reports say it was the invention of notoriously brash Berlin residents at the end of the 19th century. To them it was shorthand for the sudden influx of farmers in their woolly green loden coats bound for the city’s annual agricultural society show.

Link www.gruenewoche.de