Being a farmer means structuring your life around the animals and the weather, and rarely being able to take a vacation. Is it therefore harder for farmers to find life partners than for other professions? Is the search for a partner about work or love? And what are the advantages of life in the countryside?

Five years ago, Tiba Marchetti, editor of the Austrian TV program "Am Schauplatz," posed these questions to several single farmers and one female farmer – and has now followed up for the second time to see what has happened since.

Johannes, 36, who took over the sunny farm on the Mitterberg mountain in Lower Austria from his adoptive father, was looking for a woman who appreciated rural life as much as he did. "I'll only marry if I love the woman," Johannes enthused. And he added with a grin, "Whether she's a farmer or an engineer who brings home the bacon is secondary." She ended up neither a farmer nor an engineer. Johannes fell in love with an environmental economist, and she with him. Petra laughs: "I wasn't looking for a farmer, but I found one—and also my purpose in life." They now live together on the farm. And they already have a child.

The Lueger family's four-generation farm in the Mostviertel region of Lower Austria has had some tough years—the farm handover was anything but easy. "I told my wife, leave the young ones alone, the farm doesn't belong to us anymore," the older farmer recounts. But his wife, Maria, couldn't let go of her old ways. Young farmer Yvonne was distraught: "I tried to adapt—but I wasn't happy." Today, everyone has their own area of ​​responsibility, and the conflict has been resolved. There's also news from forester Viktoria in the Waldviertel region and pig farmer Siegfried in southern Burgenland.

You can find more from "Am Schauplatz" at https://on.orf.at