This year’s corn harvest could be just over 4 million tons

“The domestic corn crop has shown significant fluctuations in the past few years: while in 2023, with the fourth best yield of the past hundred years, with an average yield of 8.2 tons/hectare, 771 thousand hectares, 6.3 million tons of corn were produced, the yield has decreased significantly in three of the last four years, which represents a trend-like decline

– Gergely Dózsa, agricultural expert at the Agricultural and Food Business Unit of MBH Bank, told Agroinform.

– Due to this year’s dry summer, a yield of more than 4.2 million tons is not expected in 2025 either, which again poses a challenge to the processing industry and market players involved in animal feed.”

Dr. Katalin Körösi, the professional and operational director of the Corn Circle Association, also sees that corn production in Hungary has reached a crossroads. At the same time, large regional differences are visible in the country this year: while healthier stocks developed in the northern and some western regions due to more rainfall, in several places in the Great Plains, forced silage had to be done in mid-summer. Farmers are thus experiencing huge differences in crop prospects, and many are already wondering whether it is worth trusting corn in the long term. This crop is particularly sensitive to drought, extreme UV radiation, and mycotoxin-producing fungi also make it difficult to sell safely from time to time.

“The future of corn production fundamentally depends on three factors: if we manage to improve irrigation, introduce new, resistant varieties, and apply better farming methods (crop rotation, tillage, and optimized harvesting) than the current ones, corn can continue to be dominant. If these are not achieved, sunflowers, soybeans, and sorghum could take its place on Hungarian arable land.”