Hundreds of billions of forints more to help environmentally conscious farmers

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István Nagy explained that the Ministry of Agriculture remains committed to supporting programs that encourage sustainable, environmentally and climate-conscious agricultural practices. As a continuation of the Rural Development Program (VP) of the previous support period, the ministry announced calls for proposals under the CAP Strategic Plan entitled Agri-Environmental Management Payments (AKG) and Support for Organic Farming (ÖKO) last year. The minister highlighted that, given the great interest, a decision was made by reallocating funds, according to which they can provide support to all applicants who are formally compliant and fulfill the minimum commitments. Accordingly, they decided to support approximately 17,600 AKG and more than 5,000 ÖKO applications, which means 150 billion forints annually for the former program and 58 billion forints for the latter for farmers. Since we are talking about multi-annual target programs in both cases, the potential support amount for the 5-year construction could exceed 750 billion and 290 billion forints, respectively.

The head of the ministry emphasized that the beneficiaries can receive the support contracts continuously

In the first round, small and family farms, then in the next round, larger farms, and then – if funds are available – producers in larger areas can also receive their support contracts, on the basis of which they can submit their unified applications – he added. The commitment period for the support programs runs from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2029, and farmers can first submit payment applications under this year’s Single Application.

AM