Damage caused by wild animals: the Chamber of Agriculture firmly stands up for the interests of farmers

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Agricultural game damage usually causes enormous economic damage to producers, for whom only a fraction of it is reimbursed by those entitled to hunt. The National Chamber of Agrarian Economy (NAK) has satisfied this and will firmly stand up for the interests of farmers in this area in the future as well. NAK announced today that it is founding a company to take over the collection of farmers’ legitimate wildlife damage claims in litigation, so that those affected get the money they are entitled to as soon as possible.

In the last two decades, the level of wildlife damage has increased almost continuously

At the same time, it is an old problem that only a fraction of it is reimbursed to the farmers. The main reason for the drastically increasing damage to wild game is the overbreeding of wild game: in sixty years, the number of the five big game (red deer, fallow deer, roe deer, wild boar, mouflon) has increased by at least five times, nowadays 17 times more big game are shot than in the 1960s. According to scientific calculations, a total of about 800,000 big game animals live in Hungary, and this bloated herd consumes 1.4 million tons of fibrous, juicy and grainy food every year. Only 8 percent of this (110,000 tons) is distributed as game fodder by game management units, the rest is consumed by game from the forest and fields. Even according to conservative estimates, half of the food requirements of the large game population, about 700 thousand tons, is realized as game damage. The value of this is approximately 21 billion forints, while just over 3 billion forints are paid out as game damages to farmers every year.

The proliferated big game herd is practically maintained by agriculture – farmers – and forestry

And the farmers can rightly expect that they will be reimbursed for the 21 billion HUF loss per year caused by the feeding of the big game. Producers cannot claim compensation for game damage from those entitled to hunt, or only with great difficulty and over a long period of time. The Chamber of Agriculture has therefore decided to establish a company and take over the collection of the farmers’ legitimate wildlife damage claims in legal cases, so that those affected get the money they are entitled to as soon as possible. With this, NAK wants to achieve stricter compliance from those entitled to hunt with regard to the fulfillment of farmers’ demands.

NAK