Expanding production, increasing efficiency in Hungarian vegetable production

By: STA Date: 2024. 08. 15. 09:30

In the past decade and a half, there has been a significant improvement in efficiency in domestic vegetable production, which is most strikingly reflected in the yields, said Minister of Agriculture István Nagy. Between 2010 and 2023, the yield per hectare more than doubled for tomatoes and four-fifths for peppers. Farmers also harvested more carrots, tomatoes, red onions, green peas and sweet corn.

(Photo: Pixabay)

István Nagy emphasized: although the weather also has a serious impact on the performance of the horticulture sector, the market environment, the variability of consumer demands or input prices, and government measures supporting production security and farmer liquidity have made it possible that in recent years domestic vegetable production, both in terms of quality, and advance in terms of quantity. Although the production area of some crops has decreased, in addition to the increase in the intensity of production and the strengthening of professionally working producers, the production quantities have also shown an increase in recent years.

A good example of the evolution of crop volumes is tomatoes, whose volume increased by almost a third between 2010 and 2023 to over 177,000 tons, thanks to the increase in yield. Red onion production also increased significantly, exceeding 58,000 tons with an increase of 42.4%. This process is also strengthened by the increase in the yield of carrots by nearly 23.6%, green peas by 49.6% and sweet corn by nearly 68.6%, the minister listed.

The head of the ministry highlighted that the horticulture sector has received significant resources in recent years through the Rural Development Program. In this way, nearly seven thousand investments for technological development, machine purchase, modernization and renovation of horticulture, establishment of glass and foil houses, planting of plantations, establishment of mushroom houses, cold storages, planting of wine grape plantations received support of about HUF 185 billion. In addition to cultivation, it should also be emphasized that the Ministry of Agriculture allocates significant resources to the development and establishment of processing plants, since the investments made are significantly utilized in vegetable processing. The Ministry of Agriculture has already announced the 2024 tender calls for increasing the value of agricultural products and the development of processing plants, he added.