Magazine: Those who form a consortium can apply for 1.5 billion-forint funding

From the middle of February 2016 farmers and micro- and small food industry enterprises can apply for development-purpose funding from a HUF 151-billion budget. Medium-sized food companies have the opportunity to finance their development projects from the Economic Development and Innovation Operative Programme (GINOP).

Applicants can get various sums from a couple of ten millions to HUF 500 million, but those who decide to form a consortium have the chance to be granted as much as HUF 1.5 billion. Farmers and small businesses can get funding for technological development projects which would help them to make products with a higher value and to enter foreign markets. The subsidy can be maximum 50 percent of the project’s value (40 percent in the Central Hungary region).

31 December 2015 was the deadline for environmental management for agriculture and ecological farming grant programmes. There were more than 18,000 applications (for 1.2 million hectares of land) sent in for the former and 2,242 for the latter. The Ministry of Agriculture announces the Green Source grant programme in 2016 too. NGOs can be granted financial support for their projects from a HUF 70-million budget. Last year 52 organisations got sums between HUF 300,000 and 3 million.

Within the framework of the Rural Development (VP) programme new financing schemes have been announced: there is a HUF 14-billion budget for livestock farmers and HUF 3.8 billion is available to crop farmers – in both sectors the objective is to support those farmers who are contributing with their work to preserving the genetic stock; funding intensity is 100 percent.