Experiences
Visit to the “Na Ravan” Farm
The farm, known locally as the Na Ravan farm, is located in Cerkljanski Vrh at an altitude of 900 m. It is a mountain farm whose main activity is the production and processing of haymilk. They work 27 hectares of interconnected surfaces (meadows and pastures). The parents, Judita and Marjan Demšar and their older son Peter, work on the farm full-time, while Irena, Matej and Anamarija help as much as they can.
The Na Ravan farm offers guided tours of the entire farm, a presentation of the farming methods and the production facilities. The programme for visitors is adapted to different target groups (farmers, young people, farming professionals), who:
- get to know the strengths and weaknesses of grazing of the animals giving haymilk and the effects on milk products;
- learn about the main differences between milk from conventional grazing and milk from pasture grazing, through a comparison of various aspects;
- learn about grazing from the viewpoint of the well-being and performance of the animals, and as one of the farming systems and cultivation of grasslands;
- learn about the milk production process with an emphasis on the processing of raw milk into high-quality cheeses, on the classification of cheeses into categories (hard, semi-hard, soft, fresh), and on the criteria for the classification of cheeses;
- learn about the phases of cheese making, such as preparing the milk, coagulation, processing of the coagulum, separating the whey from the curd, shaping the cheese, pressing the cheese, salting it, and aging the cheese. A special characteristic of cheeses from the Na Ravan farm is that the milk is not pasteurised, which means that the milk has to be of exceptional quality.
The programme ends with a tasting and a comparison of different types of cheeses and other dairy products.
Guided tours are possible exclusively by prior arrangement.
No. of persons: up to 10
Duration: 1 hour