Grain producers have to find buyers for their crops themselves

(Photo: Pixabay)

Tamás Petőházi, the president of the arable field department of the National Chamber of Agrarian Economy (NAK), said that the war situation determines the prices on the world market, so sellers have to monitor their development almost daily. To give an idea of the scale of production, he said: the world’s grain harvest is 2,290 million tons, and Hungary will grow about 20 million tons of grain this year. Of this, the wheat crop in the world is 290 million, while in Hungary it is 5.6 million tons.

Last year, the Russian-Ukrainian war caused a barley panic, as the two countries account for one-seventh of the world’s grain production, about 120 million tons

25 percent of the wheat circulating on the world market was of Russian or Ukrainian origin – explained the expert, noting that 40 percent of the 70 million tons of goods shipped from Ukraine over the past year, more than 30 million tons, went to Western European markets and did not reach Africa . According to Tamás Petőházi, the European Union reacted slowly to the situation last fall and is recklessly forcing land delivery. If the transport subsidy of HUF 30,000 per ton is given for this, it will destroy the Hungarian farmers – he emphasized. Related to this, István Jakab, the President of the National Association of Hungarian Farmers’ Cooperatives and Farmers’ Cooperatives (Magoss), the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, said that according to Hungary’s point of view, neither the deadline of September 15th nor December 31st should open the borders to Ukrainian grain. Unregulated Ukrainian grain cannot enter the country, and we definitely say no to the planned transit subsidy, he said. He called the biggest concern that “the Russians have acquired the traditional Ukrainian markets, and the Ukrainians are flooding the European markets with grain.”

According to the information of the president of Magosz, 30 percent of this year’s wheat crop in Hungary is food wheat, and 70 percent is feed wheat

Zoltán Lakatos, the president and CEO of Hajdú Gabona Zrt., explained: an increase in the purchase price of food wheat is expected, but the price of feed wheat per ton may drop below HUF 60,000, so he recommended the sale of the latter to the farmers as soon as possible. Péter Pepó, professor of agriculture at the University of Debrecen, added: today the grain market, including the wheat market, is dictated by the partial interests of the actors – producers, mills, baking industry – although everyone could find their own calculation by cooperating. According to the expert, fewer types of wheat should be produced in a larger area in Hungary, because “it is not possible to compile a single batch of 1,000 tons” from the 150 types of wheat produced in Hungary. He added: the wheat cultivation technology in Hungary needs to be refined, and the farmers should already know before sowing which market they want to sell the crop on. The variety and technology should be chosen in line with this – suggested the professor at the grain consultation in Debrecen.

MTI