Many applications for farmers and the payment of agricultural subsidies is being completed at a good pace

(Photo: AM/István Fekete)

Zsolt Feldman announced at the agricultural forum that the State Treasury has already paid 88 percent of the basic support and 95 percent of the redistributive support. Thus, 98 percent of the applicants, 149.5 thousand farmers, have already received funds. Final payments have also been made continuously since the end of March under various legal titles. When paying out the 2024 unified applications, 26 billion forints have been disbursed to almost 12 thousand farmers in Csongrád-Csanád county so far, he added. The State Secretary highlighted that of the almost 2,900 billion forints budget for the rural development pillar of the CAP Strategic Plan, 2,300 billion forints are provided by the Hungarian government, while EU co-financing amounts to 600 billion forints.

According to Zsolt Feldman’s presentation, in the current financing cycle, 34 calls for proposals with a budget of 1,347 billion forints have been issued from the CAP rural development framework by March 11

The domestic agriculture is in an intensive application period, as a total of 73 calls for proposals are helping farmers, including those announced last year and those appearing this year. In 2025, 40 calls for applications are expected, including for support for precision farming, agro-forestry systems and crop drying developments. Also this year, the tender scheme to assist young farmers will arrive with a budget of 79 billion forints. In addition, the support decisions expected under the Agri-Environmental Management Programme will be made at the end of April or beginning of May, which 20 thousand farmers are waiting for, he listed. He called the calls popular, citing as an example that they experienced significant over-application for the investment tender schemes that have been closed so far and are still under review. Businesses submitted support requests nearly four times larger than the announced budget amounts, thus approaching 1,800 billion forints. The largest development demand came from the areas of animal husbandry and food processing. Decisions have also been made in the case of the call for applications for small-scale processing plants, with the first supporting documents being handed over this week, he noted.

AM