Chamber of Agriculture: the ice damage removal system operated for 99 days during the protection season

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With the help of 219 automatic and 767 manual soil generators from 986 points in the country, the system prevents tens of billions of forints in damage to agriculture every year, and also protects residential, industrial and state facilities, real estate and chattels. This year was the fifth year of operation of the system built by NAK, for its operation the Ministry of Agriculture provides a maximum of HUF 1.5 billion per year from the Damage Mitigation Fund – reminded the Chamber of Agriculture. According to calculations, every HUF spent on the system saves about HUF 33 in production value, which means HUF 50 billion in production value saved annually. In 2021, farmers reported ice damage to 39,000 hectares, a significant proportion of which occurred on three days of extreme weather. For comparison: in 2017, the last year when the nationwide ice damage mitigation system was not yet operational, farmers reported almost twice as much ice damage, a total of 72,000 hectares, the NAK reminds.

The operation of the ice damage mitigation system is professionally supported by the National Meteorological Service (OMSZ).

This year, the generators had to be turned on mainly in Transdanubia during the April-June period due to the occasional violent thunderstorms. Due to the historic drought that hit almost all of Europe in the summer, there was much less danger of ice in July-August, and basically only on a local basis, which made it necessary to turn on the generators only a few times. In September, a much larger amount of precipitation than usual fell in the country, during this period of thunderstorms, the generators had to be switched on for 14 days, and the generators ran for no less than 35,009 hours in September. It has been scientifically proven that, in addition to reducing the size of ice grains, the system cannot influence other parameters of the weather, especially the distribution and intensity of precipitation, the formation and movement of clouds, and its operation does not pose a health or environmental risk – the chamber emphasized. In the rest of the year, the maintenance work of the system will be carried out and it will be prepared for the next defense season, which starts in the spring, they added.

MTI