The performance of Hungarian agriculture has increased significantly in recent years, Minister of State for Agricultural Economy György Czerván said at the agrarian sector conference organised by the Bácska and Dunamellék Agricultural Coalition in Siófok, Lake Balaton.

Minister of State Czerván pointed out that while agricultural output was 1686.4 billion forints (EUR 5.25bn) in 2010, the performance of the sector has increased to HUF 2397bn (EUR 7.46bn) in 2014, which represents growth of 42.1%. In addition to increased output, a higher level of investments (HUF 232.3bn [EUR 723 million] in Q1-3, an increase of 16.9% compared to the previous year) and a significant increase in the number of people employed in agriculture can also be observed. Similarly to 2013, agricultural exports continued to achieve excellent results in 2014. Exports have broken records for the past three years in a row and are currently at around 8 billion euros/year.

Mr. Czerván also mentioned that, despite the unfavourable weather, production of maize (9.15 million tons), rape (660 thousand tons) and sunflower seeds (1.6 million tons) had all broken known records in 2014.

In his lecture, the Minister of State also provided detailed information about the most important changes to and new elements of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the period 2015-2020.

(Ministry of Agriculture)