“Hungarian agriculture has been performing well for years”, the Minister of State for Agricultural Economy declared at the National Agriculture and Food Industry Exhibition and Fair (OMÉK).

In his lecture, György Czerván said agricultural output was increasing year-by-years, the level of exports is continuously increasing, and the agriculture sector is also increasingly contributing to GDP growth.

Mr. Czerván gave a lecture entitled “Current Issues within the Agricultural Economy” in front of a large crowd at the OMÉK expo. In his extremely detailed analysis, from an economics perspective, the Minister of State spoke about practically every sector of Hungarian agriculture. Firstly, he declared that the agriculture sector has been producing more and more every year since 2010, representing total growth of 33 percent at current prices, which is also significant at national economy level.

Our agricultural exports are also becoming increasingly important in view of the fact that the value of exports increased from 5-8 billion euros in 2010 to over 8 billion in 2016, achieving an 11% share of the national economy. Growth continues unbroken, and the first half of this year produced a similarly dynamic increase. Our most important export items are cereals, vegetable oils, oil seeds, milk products and alcoholic beverages, primarily wine. This trend is expected to continue in the second half of the year in view for the act that harvest yields for arable crops are good, and in accordance with expectations. The picture is somewhat more diverse with regard to animal husbandry, with cattle stocks increasing significantly in recent years and a small increase in sheep stocks, but a reduction in pig and poultry stocks. The latter were significantly affected by emergency culling relating to the bird flu epidemic, as a result of which more of every significant species of farmed poultry were slaughtered in 2016 in comparison to previous years.

With relation to agricultural funding, the Government paid out the maximum possible level of funding allowed by the European Union in all cases, in addition to successfully having Brussels pay out supplementary resources in the case of sectors that experienced market disturbances. A total of 172 thousand farmers receive a total of 224 billion forints (EUR 717.5 million) in basic funding, in addition to which rice, vegetable, fruit, protein crop and cattle farmers received a total of 62 billion forints (EUR 198.5 million) in production-based funding. The Ministry paid out 103 billion forints from the national budget on several grounds. Mr. Czerván also presented the ratio of agricultural funding with relation to the gross revenue of the various agricultural sectors, from which it transpired that all animal husbandry sector with the exception of the poultry sector would be unprofitable without subsidies.

The Minister of State also spoke about the agricultural funding system for the European Union’s post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Hungary’s goal during CAP negotiations is for its current status to remain unchanged, and for Hungary to continue to receive a similar ratio of agricultural funding even if the total level of funding is decreased, because that wold serve to assure the competitiveness of Hungarian farmers within Europe. There is as yet no official EU communication with regard to the CAP; the European Commission will present its standpoint on the CAP to member states in November of this year.