Hungarian milk production has reached the forefront of Europe

(Photo: AM/István Fekete)

István Nagy said that milk is the most complete and basic food, one of the most versatile staple foods. At the same time, he emphasized that the future of the market is uncertain due to international challenges, and the government is therefore helping the dairy sector with a transparent, predictable and easily accessible support system. The head of the ministry announced that the call for compensating the extra costs of Hungarian producers could end with the signing of 550 supporting documents worth HUF 42.5 billion. The final payments started last year under the legal title of support for the production-related dairy farming, and more than 3,200 producers have already received a total of almost HUF 26 billion. Development tenders for the fodder industry, the food industry and animal husbandry will be finalized this month, and HUF 200-200 billion will be allocated to tenders for the processing industry and livestock farms, he explained. The tenders supporting the investment primarily support technological developments, livestock farms and milk processing plants can use the funds for, among other things, new machines, energy, storage or packaging upgrades, the minister said.

István Nagy condemned the rise of milk and milk product imitations because, in his opinion, this could endanger the future of animal husbandry and the traditional rural way of life

“Completely wrong” to replace agricultural products with substitute products citing animal welfare considerations, and Hungarian milk must be protected by all means, as it is never acceptable for food to be separated from real production, he said. The president of the National Chamber of Agrarian Economy (NAK) also referred to one of the recently started advertising campaigns, when he stated that the “anti-butter media campaigns” question the dairy sector’s right to exist and falsely claim that vegetable raw materials are more valuable than animal ones. Balázs Győrffy stated that advertisements that refer to animal welfare aspects and affect emotions serve consumer fashion trends, spread misconceptions and ignore basic facts, such as the fact that cows need to be milked, very strict rules apply to animal farms, and the animals living there from a human point of view they also live in good conditions. He called it unacceptable that 300,000 tons of milk leave the country every year, while the domestic butter, cheese and yogurt market is dominated by foreign products. Balázs Győrffy urged the modernization of production, the increase of production capacities, and the cooperation of producers, processors and traders for the sake of the competitiveness of the dairy sector.

The member of the board representing retailers of the Milk Professional Organization and Product Council would like the shops to sell only Hungarian dairy products, but according to him, the production capacities must also be developed for this

Ilona Zséli is confident in the upswing in traffic, since the decline was followed by a slight increase this year, but she sees that the domestic market has become price sensitive as a result of the crisis, customers are looking for special offers, while the temporary measures, price caps and mandatory promotions are a heavy burden report to traders. Attila Koller, the CEO of Tolnatej Zrt., as co-chairman of the product council, also urged the acceleration of investments, for which he also believes that tender grants are essential, since the series of crises of recent years have consumed the company’s own resources. As a result of the economic difficulties, production costs have doubled, and it is difficult for even the biggest players in the Hungarian market to survive on an international level, since while Tolnatej processes 260 million liters of milk annually, the more serious foreign competitors use more than 10-15 billion liters, he said. He also raised the issue of labor supply, which he believes adult training could help with. The automation of production would reduce the labor demand, but for this reason the dairy industry needs subsidies that do not require the creation of jobs as a tender requirement, he added. Co-chairman Miklós Istvánfi sees, based on the income data for 2023, that the income conditions of neither milk processors nor milk producers are currently reassuring, as there are those in both circles who closed the previous year with a loss or at least without a profit. The sector benefits from the fact that the price of raw milk has not fallen too much, but the call for tenders must be speeded up, because the Hungarian milk sector cannot be left behind in the quality competition, he said.

MTI