Hungary may declare exemption from foot-and-mouth disease at the end of May

István Nagy, Minister of Agriculture (Photo: AM)

He said that no new infections have been detected since the start of the 21-day incubation period, and if this does not change, the government may submit documents proving the exemption to the European Union, and thus animal and food exports may resume without restrictions from the end of June. István Nagy emphasized that very strict control measures are still in place everywhere, and farmers are asked to strictly adhere to the epidemiological rules in order to prevent the re-emergence of the infection. Listing the government measures so far, he said that first of all, the wages of farm workers were taken over from the Wage Guarantee Fund until the farms restarted, and a one-year loan moratorium was introduced, so that farmers do not have to pay the interest and principal installments on investment and working capital loans.

In addition, the Hungarian Development Bank (MFB) launched a three-part program package with a budget of 217 billion forints

This is not only available to the affected farms, but also supports Hungarian livestock farmers and workers in the food industry. The first element of this is a 150 billion forint working capital loan program, of which 100 billion forints serves to replace existing loans, while a 50 billion forint part helps businesses in the form of a bank guarantee. As the second stage of the program package, the three former agricultural products of the MFB will be made available again to the agricultural and food industry and the producer sales organizations (TÉSZ), with a budget of 17 billion forints. As part of the third element, a 50 billion forint investment loan program will also be launched, he added. He explained that pig farmers in areas subject to restrictions due to foot-and-mouth disease have also found themselves in a difficult situation, so buyers and processors have been encouraged to buy up slaughter pigs, up to 60 percent of the market price, while farmers will be compensated up to a maximum of 40 percent of the lost price difference from the compensation fund. With this measure, about 10 thousand completely healthy slaughter pigs from the region can be processed per week.

MTI