The agricultural logistics center in Jánoshalma was handed over

(Photo: Csaba Pelsőczy)

István Nagy explained: as the last step of the project, thanks to the cold storage facility, which was awarded in the Territorial and Urban Development Operative Program and was built with about 797 million forints, Jánoshalmi producers, primary producers, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises will have the opportunity to store, sell out of season, and sell in new markets. for appearance. This has a beneficial effect on the volume of the local economy and employment. In connection with the anniversary of the revolution and freedom struggle of 1848-49, the minister said: with Jánoshalmi and similar investments, “we continue to build the Hungary that the young people of March began to create”. Their aspirations were about a country that stands up for the nation’s independence, and about economic opportunities that offer people work, livelihood, and development, he emphasized. István Nagy reminded: in the past period, agriculture, including the cultivation and processing of vegetables and fruits, faced several serious challenges. However, the Hungarian farming community has shown that “agriculture and the food industry can continuously supply Hungarian families and the entire country with fresh and healthy food even in the shadow of the coronavirus epidemic, the war, the failed Brussels sanctions and the drought on a historic scale”. The Hungarian government has provided all assistance for this in 2022 as well, he declared.

During these tests, agriculture became a national strategic sector

In this spirit, a government decision was made to provide historical resources for the development of agriculture and food production. Over the past two years, over 1,200 billion forints of support have been approved for more than ten thousand agricultural and food industry enterprises in connection with their development, using all the resources that the government has earmarked for agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture reminded: from 2014, HUF 184.2 billion was awarded to 6,907 winning applications within the framework of the Rural Development Program’s investment calls directly affecting the horticulture sector. Among other things, the obtained funds were used for the construction of 800,000 square meters of new greenhouses and 465,000 square meters of new foil-covered greenhouses, as well as the creation of 452,000 cubic meters of new cold storage. According to István Nagy, “historic times are also a historical opportunity for agriculture”. The domestic agriculture and food industry can develop until 2027 with the adoption of the Strategic Plan of the Hungarian Common Agricultural Policy and the use of more than HUF 5,300 billion.

Together with the outstanding proportion of the national budget contribution of 80 percent, the EU resources account for this huge amount

For the Hungarian government, despite the unpredictable international political and economic conditions, a priority goal is to increase the productivity of agriculture to one and a half times, the added value of agricultural production to double, and the value of our agricultural and food exports to increase by 50 percent to 15 billion euros by 2030, he added. . According to the minister, agriculture and production have made a lot of progress in the past ten years. He named the development of the processing industry and the food industry as the next step. “Next to productive agriculture, processing agriculture must be built, and the Hungarian food industry destroyed by privatization must be resurrected,” he added.

According to government commissioner Gábor Bányai, the region’s Fidesz member of parliament, the cold store is currently able to store and cool more than a thousand tons of goods, and the processor with a capacity of one thousand liters per hour can receive up to 20 tons of fruit per day. He indicated: the investment would be further developed in several phases. László Rideg, chairman of the Assembly of Bács-Kiskun County, reported that in the country’s largest county, within the framework of the Territorial and Urban Development Operative Program, over HUF 100 billion in support, around 770 investments were realized in the last six years. In the past period, it was possible to provide development resources to all settlements in the county.

Zoltán Czeller, the mayor of Jánoshalma, is confident that the development of the agro-logistics center will allow the region’s fruit and vegetable production to flourish again. The facility, the processor and the cold store will be operated by a cooperative formed by local and neighboring farmers, he added. According to the report on the website of the Bács-Kiskun County Self-Government, the industrial park in the area of the former barracks was first developed with about 250 million forints from TOP funds, then the fruit processing plant was also built with 250 million forints, and finally the cold store was built.

MTI