“In recent years, agricultural output has grown remarkably even in EU comparison, reaching almost 2600 billion forints in 2017”, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Parliamentary State Secretary István Nagy said at an agricultural event in Kesznyéten.
He pointed out that the growth of Hungarian agriculture was among the first three in the European Union between 2010 and 2017. In 2017, agricultural output amounted to 2,534 billion forints (EUR 8.2bn), increasing by 50 percent at current prices and by 25 percent at unchanged prices over the past seven years.
Mr. Nagy emphasised that the Government has contributed to the favourable processes with a wide range of tools and targeted policy measures. He emphasized that increased agricultural subsidies provide farmers with production and income security and encourage their investments, while preferential loans improve financing conditions and an improved risk management system makes farming more predictable.
The State Secretary underlined that the funding financed from domestic sources has almost doubled over the past seven years. The amount available for national subsidies increased from around HUF 50 billion in 2010 to HUF 96 billion in 2017, largely thanks to the More Jobs in Agriculture Programme. As a result of the government's decision, the program will provide the highest national funding possible under Community regulations for the bovine, dairy, sheep and tobacco sectors up to 2020.
He pointed out that the Ministry is paying particular attention to sectors that do not receive EU direct funding. For this reason, funding for the poultry and pig sectors has increased threefold since 2010, from 4 billion forints to 13 billion forints for the poultry sector and from 6 billion forints to 17 billion forints for pig farmers.
Mr. Nagy said that in his view tendentious positive processes can be observed in agriculture, which can only be temporarily influenced by weather effects and market disturbances, and the outlook for the future is positive.