István Nagy: We must protect EU funds for farmers

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The minister reminded that farmers are currently being helped with numerous subsidies, which could easily be endangered according to Brussels’ budget plan; it would give the farmers’ funds to Ukraine. Regarding the domestic agricultural financing system, the Minister mentioned as an example that the basic support rate per hectare is more than 55 thousand forints. Thanks to the redistributive support, those affected will receive 33.5 thousand forints per hectare after their first 10 hectares; Between 11 and 150 hectares, they will receive an additional subsidy of 18.1 thousand forints per hectare. He highlighted that generational change is a priority government task and objective, so young farmers are entitled to an additional subsidy of 37.3 thousand forints per hectare in addition to the aforementioned, after a maximum of 300 hectares. István Nagy said that the subsidies that can be given per hectare are 91.1 thousand for vegetable crops tied to production; almost 154 thousand for industrial vegetable crops; 189 thousand for extensive fruit production; and 386 thousand for intensive fruit production. These subsidy titles not only provide a significant financial basis, but also provide an incentive for the growers of these crops.

The Minister underlined that in addition to the basic subsidies, the government also pays special attention to the planting of new plantations

Such programs were implemented in the Rural Development Program to the value of almost 25 billion forints. We have provided 41 billion forints for the purchase of gardening machinery – added István Nagy. One of the biggest problems of our time to be solved is to reduce and slow down the harmful effects of climate change. That is why we have provided around 410 billion forints for the support of the Agri-Environmental Management Program (AKG) or Organic Farming (ÖKO) – highlighted the Minister of Agriculture. There was great interest in this year’s plantation applications, with a total of 637 applications submitted, worth almost 56 billion forints. An important result is that in the next five years, all gardening businesses participating in the target programs can receive support, as around 2 million hectares of agricultural area have already been included in the AKG and ÖKO programs. All this shows that we pay special attention to supporting the gardening sector, and we will continue to do so in the future. However, in order to continue to provide support to producers, we must support a complete rethinking of the recently published EU budget after 2028. In its current form, it would ruin farmers, which we will not allow, István Nagy emphasized.

AM