The GHG emission values ​​for grain and oil crop cultivation have been accepted

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The government has successfully concluded a long and difficult process in proving the sustainable cultivation of domestic grain and oil crops from the point of view of climate protection, in which the cooperation of the sector actors and the public administration was excellent.

The GHG emission values ​​of grain corn, winter cabbage rape, sunflower, winter wheat and soybeans accepted by the European Commission do not in any case put domestic producers and biofuel processors at a competitive disadvantage

Since the emission values ​​of our plants are typically not higher compared to the Danish, German, Lithuanian and Czech values ​​accepted so far, our country is the only EU member state with accepted soy and sunflower emission values. We thus managed to preserve the market competitiveness of the domestic grain and oilseed sector not only against countries with already accepted values, but also against the other member states, since they are only allowed to use the EU average values, which are typically higher, i.e. less favorable than the calculated values. The success of the preparation and acceptance process is due to multi-stakeholder and exemplary cooperation, as the process was able to be concluded at the forefront of the EU at the request of the sector actors, under the coordination of the Ministry of Agriculture, with the calculation of the Agricultural Economics Institute (AKI) and the negotiation of the Ministry of Energy.

In 2023, the European Commission announced that the previous regional greenhouse gas (GHG) emission values ​​(so-called NUTS2 values) developed and recognized in the framework of RED I are no longer valid

It therefore invited Member States to submit new calculated values ​​for recognition. Hungary complied with this request by submitting a report to the European Commission on the GHG emission levels specific to the cultivation of agricultural raw materials for the NUTS 2 regions and the five most important arable and oil crops within the framework of RED II. This was accepted at the technical level by the European Commission on October 1, 2024. At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that the value of GHG emissions from crop cultivation is increased mostly by the application of N fertilizers and especially urea in relation to the yield. Thus, the most effective means of reducing GHG emissions from arable and oil crops is to carefully adjust the type and use of N fertilizers to the intensity of cultivation and the expected realistic yields. 1

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