Investment is the right answer to challenges

(Photo: AM/Csaba Pelsőczy)

The Minister of Agriculture emphasized that, despite Hungarian agriculture achieving excellent yields at the European level, it cannot win in the competition for raw materials on international markets due to its size, and for historical reasons its added value has also remained low. The first winning applicants in the food industry can now advance in the market of processed products, contributing to increasing Hungarian exports and agricultural profitability, he said. According to the Minister, the government made a historic decision by assigning the highest possible co-financing rate to EU rural development funds, which is unique in Europe, so that the Hungarian budget will provide 2,300 billion forints out of the almost 2,900 billion forints budget for the 2021-2027 cycle. The total development amount is thus almost three times larger than in the previous period, meaning that the Hungarian countryside can move 21 years forward in 7 years – he said.

István Nagy welcomed the fact that all rural development applications ended with oversubscription, because this shows that the producers themselves want to develop

He added that small and large developments can always apply for separate calls so that they do not have to compete with each other. Based on the decisions made so far in the Support for the Development of Processing Plants tender, more than 7 billion forints will be paid out to 129 applications, the upper limit of the support is 200 million forints, and calculated at a 50 percent rate, this can help implement a total investment of 400 million forints. The government hopes that the tender will make the applicants “the strength of the countryside”, helping to preserve the economy of their region – said István Nagy, who also trusts that the results of the support will be measurable in the gross national product of the coming years. The renewal of the food industry and the investments in processing plants can give impetus to the entire country, and farmers can be sure that their products will find buyers – said the Minister of Agriculture.

MTI