“Hungary insists on traditional foods, which must, however, be produced using the latest state-of-the-art technologies”, Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas said on Saturday in Berlin at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA).
In a statement to public media during the recess of the meeting, which is also known as the Agriculture Ministers' Summit, Mr. Fazekas emphasised: “Hungary is doing its utmost to assure that agricultural digitalisation becomes as widespread as possible, because it allows production to be economical and competitive.
“At the same time, Hungary continues to advocate an agriculture that produces healthy, natural, high-quality, and above all GMO-free food, and rejects solutions that "many are trying to spread quietly," including the production of artificial meat and insect protein for human consumption", the Minister said.
In the upcoming years, Hungarian agrarian diplomacy must continue to follow the principle that "we Hungarians want nothing to do with these methods", Mr, Fazekas emphasised.
The GFFA Forum was held for the 10th time this year on the sidelines of the world's largest agriculture, food and horticulture expo, Berlin’s International Grüne Woche (International green week, IGW) with the participation of agriculture ministers from almost 100 countries. “At the fair, which began on Friday, Hungary is once again appearing with its own national stand, which was already full on the first day”, Mr. Fazekas said.
He emphasised that IGW is also a major event for agrarian diplomacy, and the Hungarian delegation held 16 ministerial-level bilateral talks on the first day alone.
“The greatest achievement of this year's IGW was the further expansion of the number of European countries committed to cultivating GMO-free soy. Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova and Montenegro have joined the European Soy Declaration, bringing the number of signatories to the Hungarian-German-Austrian initiative to 18 and the number of supporters to 23”, he added.
“The strengthening of the movement for the cultivation of GMO-free soy is also encouraging with relation to the reform of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)”, Mr. Fazekas said. “Both common and national agricultural policies must be shaped to ensure that Europe is self-sufficient with relation to protein crops and does not need to import GMO soy” the Hungarian Agriculture Minister explained.