The Ministry of Agriculture’s Deputy State Secretary for Agricultural Development and Hungaricums, István Loránd Szakáli, held talks in Brasília on strengthening Brazilian-Hungarian cooperation in agriculture, sharing experiences within the field of organic farming and importing GMO-free soy.

Following the third session of the Hungarian-Brazilian Joint Committee, the Ministry representative told the press that his Brazilian negotiating partners were open to cooperation on research relating to GMO-free crop production, in addition to which they had also discussed the possibility of exporting genetically unmodified soy to Hungary.

The meeting was held to assess concrete areas of cooperation and the opportunities raised by the Hungarian government’s policy of “Southward Opening”, which also aims at increased trade with the South American country. Brazil, which is the world’s seventh largest economy and has a population of over 200 million, represents an excellent opportunity for economic cooperation.

Following the meeting, Mr. Szakáli explained that agriculture is perhaps one of the most important prospective areas of cooperation and could form the basis of Hungarian-Brazilian bilateral economic relations. The current negotiations provide an excellent opportunity to further the areas of cooperation determined in the agreement signed between the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture and the Brazilian Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture in 2013. Mutual cooperation must be further deepened, especially with regard to joint work already begun in the interests of establishing freshwater aquaculture, he said.

Hungarian experts working in Brazil since the 1980s have contributed significantly to the development of Brazilian aquaculture, and this has provided a suitable basis for the further development of this field of cooperation. Hungarian-Brazilian cooperation on higher education, research and innovation could also serve to forge closer links between the two countries.

Hungary’s Constitution bans the cultivation of genetically-modified crops, the Deputy State Secretary stressed.

(Ministry of Agriculture)