“The growth of Hungary’s agriculture was among the highest in Europe between 2010 and 2016”, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Minister of State for Agricultural Economy said at a professional forum in Budapest. György Czerván added. “Funding is vital to the profitability of animal husbandry”.
Speaking at the Agricultural Academy Forum organised by the Herman Ottó Institute and Hungarian Agriculture Limited, Mr. Czerván stressed with relation to the agricultural economy as a whole: “Last year, agricultural production at current prices exceeded 2619 billion forints (EUR 8.4bn), which is an increase of 55.3 percent compared to the 2011 level and 5.3 percent higher than in the previous years. This was the highest rate of growth in the European Union for the period 2010-2016. The increase at current prices also achieved a place on the podium and was the third highest in the EU”.
With relation to this year’s harvest, Mr. Czerván said the winter wheat yield was the highest since 1988 at an average of 5.44 tons per hectare. Of the other autumn harvest crops the harvesting of sunflower seeds has been completed, with an average yield of 2.84 tons per hectare this year, almost approaching last year’s average yield of 3 tons. Some 80 percent of maize is already in silos, with a production average of 6.5 tons per hectare. The sowing of all autumn-sowed crops is going well and farmers have already completed their activities on 80-100 percent of their planned cultivation areas. Based on the latest June figures relating to animal husbandry, stocks continued last year’s decreasing trend with the exception of cattle, stocks of which increased by 2.6 percent to 864 thousand.
The Minister of State highlighted the fact that it is vital that agricultural funding continues to be received by agricultural producers during the planning of the upcoming programming period of the Common Agricultural Period (CAP). “Hungary does not regard the radical reform of the system as necessary. Hungary’s goal is to maintain the usual level of agricultural funding during the upcoming period”, Mr. Czerván said.