Harvesting has begun across the country

(Photo: AM/Tibor Vermes)

Zsolt Feldman explained that the grain market environment has somewhat settled down compared to previous years, the adverse effects of the war in Ukraine have significantly decreased, Hungarian exports have regained their momentum, so according to feedback, the utilization of domestic warehouses has dropped below 10 percent at the start of the harvest. Hungary exported 1.9 million tons of grain in the second half of 2022, and 3.3 million tons in the second half of 2023. Exports to Italy performed particularly well, almost half of the 2.1 million tons of grain exports in the first three months of this year went there, thus reversing the decline characteristic of recent years. The weather extremes did not cause significant damage this year, but a significant part of the Great Plain lacks precipitation, he added.

The state secretary announced that, based on the uniform requests, the sowing area of ​​summer-harvested crops has decreased

Compared to last year, winter wheat grows on 864,000 hectares, an 18 percent smaller area, and the area of ​​260,000 hectares of winter barley is almost 35 percent smaller in annual comparison. At the same time, the sowing area of ​​crops harvested in autumn increased by almost 11 percent, reaching a total of 1.7 million hectares. With 112,000 hectares, soybeans are almost twice the average of the last 5 years.

The president of the National Association of Grain Growers said that the harvest started unusually early this year and could end as early as next week, weather permitting

The current drought favors the works, the early summer rains were good for the crops. The harvest may be average, the results of the autumn ear crops are weaker than expected, but the domestic supply is certainly not in danger – added Tamás Petőházi, who advises the producers not to stockpile, to make deals if possible, to take advantage of favorable sales opportunities.

MTI