This is how the 31st Jeans Expo went

28 thousand 156 paying visitors were curious about the products of the 330 exhibitors at the 31st Farmer Expo in Debrecen, between August 17 and 20 – the fair director László Vaszkó took the primary balance of the four-day international agricultural and food industry exhibition.

The discourse was not only about professional issues, but also about entertainment (Photo: Pixabay)

This year, the professional conferences were also of great interest, where questions such as whether there is a future for agricultural production in the Carpathian basin, whether there is or will be enough water for this, how the lack of water affects the crop and vegetable cultivation, or can it be said that Hungarian animal husbandry is in crisis. Thanks to the good choice of topics, 500 farmers took part in the crop production round table instead of the 200 participants registered in advance, and 150 breeders were present at the animal husbandry meeting. According to the climate researcher, at the beginning of summer, 250-350 millimeters of precipitation was already missing from the ground, nowadays this has increased to 400-450 millimeters. In other words, almost the entire year’s rainfall has now been lost. It is a shocking figure that only 5 percent of Hungarian farmers have a higher education, while 48 percent of them “work according to tradition”. It has been proven that business managers with a higher degree of education generate four times as much profit as business managers “working like my father”, who are otherwise interrupted by the daily robot – it was said at the animal husbandry round table. Many people also raised their heads at the statement that, after the 25 percent crop loss recorded for wheat, the corn stock has now been destroyed in a large part of Central Hungary and the Great Plain, and the Transdanubian crop is also threatened by drought. It was said that as a result of the drought, the size of the country’s parched croplands could reach one million hectares, or 20 percent of the domestic cropland. Today, modern livestock breeding is unthinkable without the incorporation of scientific results. An excellent example of this was the pork round table organized under the title “Innovative development of feed technology for pregnant and sows”, where it was said: the special feeding technology based on back bacon resulted in an average increase of 2.2 piglets per year and per sow.

Terrible drought

The century-long drought (which was one of the central themes of the Farmer Expo) didn’t discourage the speakers and the audience either, since even though the outdoor programs had to be held in the blazing sun, in heat of almost 40 degrees, the attendance record was broken on Saturday. The largest part of the 17,000-square-meter fair area was once again occupied by agricultural machinery, and the most beautiful animals of all farm animal species, except for pigs – rabbits, sheep, goats, horses, poultry, and cattle – were presented in the sheds created in the renewed animal exhibition area. Among the animal species, special attention was given to sheep this year. For the first time, among the 150 presented horses, forty meat and cold-blooded horses could be seen at the expo, to which all the state studs sent their four- and five-year-olds. Eight fours and fives paraded at the exhibition, which has only been seen at world championships so far. Thanks to the spectacular horse parade (it is enough to mention the skills competition of folk tooths, or the tooth parade), the stands were filled by the grateful audience even towards the end of the closing day. In relation to the importance of irrigation, gardeners set their flag on a question of fate no less than “to be or not to be”… development opportunities and limitations in the light of irrigation.