New opportunities will open up for the wine sector in 2024

(Photo: AM/István Fekete)

At the event held at the Hungarian Agricultural Museum, the state secretary highlighted the foreign and domestic market promotion tenders, in addition to investments in vineyard restructuring, winemaking, and innovation-supporting investments, among the tenders to be announced this year. He mentioned that, in the last thirteen years, the restructuring of the vineyard was supported by about HUF 80 billion, with which 30,000 hectares of vineyards could be renewed. The first round of tenders opened this year and closed on January 22 will be followed by another in November. Between 2024 and 2027, around 71 million euros can be spent on grape restructuring. In order to win the grant, the evaluators will also take into account new aspects that reflect today’s expectations.

The call to support winemaking investments, to be announced in the spring, enables the purchase of viticultural machinery and technological equipment

This year, as an innovation, the tender for supporting innovation investments will be introduced, which differs from investments for winemaking machinery in that the innovation support can support the purchase of machines and equipment that are necessary for the use of new winemaking or wine-based products, as well as environmentally friendly packaging equipment. Taking into account consumer needs, this could be, for example: equipment required for the production of de-alcoholized, reduced-alcohol wine products or wine-based products with a low alcohol content, or machine lines required for the use of previously unused packaging materials (for example, lighter packaging materials). With this new support, the aim is to promote new technologies and procedures that have not yet been applied in Hungary, to reach new markets and consumers, and to increase efficiency, which meets the ever-increasing environmental demands.

In Zsolt Feldman’s presentation, he called the promotion of domestic wine and strengthening its presence on the domestic and foreign markets an important task

A significant sum of around 6 million euros is available for this task as well until 2027. Considering the 50 percent support intensity, promotional activities worth about HUF 1.5 billion could be realized between 2020 and 2023. In addition to these subsidies, the National Council of Mountain Communities and the Hungarian Wine Marketing Agency are also working for the recognition of Hungarian wines. Regarding the agricultural and rural development tenders scheduled to be announced in 2024, the state secretary emphasized that these will provide an opportunity for both small, medium and large farms to react to the economic and market changes of the past two years, to make their production more efficient or even to can open in the direction of standing on several legs. In March, the department intends to publish the first tender package for agricultural and food industry investments, which includes, among other things, calls to support investments in the food industry and wine industry. In April, support for the irrigation development of agricultural farms will appear, by the summer the support package for generational change may be ready, and by the end of the year, tenders for precision farming or horticulture mechanization will appear. Zsolt Feldman identified the verification of producer cooperation and long-term supplier relationships, or rather the goal of increasing added value, as a priority evaluation aspect in connection with the evaluation.

AM