Drought damage in agriculture

(Photo: Pixabay)

The damage mitigation fund has been filled up financially, and the producers have taken out drought insurance for 700 thousand hectares – stated Zsolt Feldman, the state secretary responsible for agriculture and rural development, who highlighted that in the 29th week almost 10 thousand, in the 30th week 18.6 thousand, until the 31st. Last week, the size of the areas declared for drought damage increased by almost 29,000 hectares, which thus reached a total of 75,000 hectares by the beginning of August. In the same period of the 2022 drought year, more than 1 million hectares of drought damage have already been registered on the electronic reporting interface, because two years ago, not only spring crops, but also autumn crops suffered significant damage in the earlier stages of the vegetation period, he added.

So far, half of this year’s drought notifications are concentrated in three counties – Bács-Kiskun, Békés and Csongrád-Csanád

Significant damage has already been reported from the counties of Fejér, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg and Pest. Around eighty percent of drought damage affects corn and sunflower crops, but in addition to that, serious damage can also be experienced in the case of silage and sweet corn. Zsolt Feldman added that the conditions for joining the agricultural damage mitigation system have not changed compared to previous years, and important steps for participants in the system (reporting and verification of a damage event, establishing a decrease in yield value, submitting an application for a damage mitigation benefit) are carried out in accordance with what has been used so far.

Starting this year, it was also possible to involve EU funds in the operation of the system

Thus, compared to previous years, HUF 34.8 billion will definitely be available for payments in March 2025. In comparison, after the damages in 2022, the damage mitigation fund paid out HUF 50.66 billion to eligible farmers, but originally only a quarter of this amount was available in the fund after payments related to damage events in previous years, the difference was provided by the government – emphasized the state secretary. Zsolt Feldman recalled that in 2022, through the damage mitigation fund, a corn producer with premium-subsidized insurance who suffered 100% damage received a damage mitigation benefit of up to HUF 250,000/hectare, but a farmer with the lowest degree of drought damage and insurance also received HUF 60,000 /hectare became eligible for payment. In the same cases, producers who do not have insurance and do not have the opportunity to take care of themselves could only receive approximately half of the above amounts as damage mitigation benefits due to EU rules.

AM