The value-added tax (VAT) charged on ESL and UHT milk will decrease from 18% to 5% on 1 January, Minister of State for Agriculture Dr Zsolt Feldman pointed out at a press event held at a CBA supermarket in Budapest’s Corvin Plaza.
The agriculture ministers of V4 countries expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of regulations aimed at eliminating differences between the quality of food sold in West versus East Europe. As Hungary’s Agriculture Minister István Nagy noted at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council’s meeting on 17 December in Brussels, it’s unacceptable that multinational food concerns treat the inhabitants of East European member states of the Union as second-rate citizens.
The agriculture ministers of the Visegrád Group (V4) countries discussed Europe’s strategy for a bio-based economy at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council’s meeting on 17 December in Brussels. Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan expressed his support for the BIOEAST initiative aimed at utilising Central and Eastern Europe’s biomass potential, launched two years ago upon Hungary’s proposal. “Maximising the added value of agricultural products through processing is key to the sector’s profitability; this is what the utilisation of research and innovation funds from Brussel can contribute to”, Agriculture Minister István Nagy explained.
“Agriculture is expected to significantly contribute to the growth of the whole domestic economy again this year”, the Minister of State for Agriculture said in Balatonfüred at a conference organised by the National Chamber of Agriculture (NAK). Mr. Feldmann highlighted that the increase in agricultural performance is mainly being driven by the rapeseed, maize, apple and poultry sectors.
“Hungarian wine-growers are expected to harvest a total of 550 thousand tons from a wine-growing area of 62 thousand hectares”, the Minister of State for Agriculture said at Soltvadkert at the 10th St. Martin’s day new wine celebration. Zsolt Feldman added that the average yield per hectare was almost 1.5 times that of the previous year.
“The Carpathian Basin has preserved one of the oldest agricultures in Europe. Hungary has outstanding natural assets; its varied ecological specifics are favourable for biodiversity. Our crop varieties and farm animal species of outstanding value have evolved over long centuries, under special climatic and ecological conditions”, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Sándor Farkas said in his presentation at the 6th International Conference on Organic Agriculture Sciences (ICOAS) in Eisenstadt.
“A total of almost HUF 230 billion in funding from domestic and EU funds has been channelled to the food sector since 2014, also stimulating the relevant investments”, Minister of State for Food Chain Supervision Róbert Zsigó said at the Agora professional conference.
Although improper residential heating is the main reason of poor air quality, a major part of society is not aware of that and blame other sectors for air pollution, State Secretary for Environmental Affairs of the Ministry of Agriculture (MA) András Rácz said at the conference organised as part of the awareness-raising campaign “Heat wisely!” (Fűts okosan!) on Wednesday in Budapest.
Minister of Agriculture István Nagy inaugurated the Hungarian stand at the agrarian pavilion of China International Import Exhibition, following which he held negotiations on the market entry of Hungarian products with leaders of local commercial companies in Shanghai.
The Ministry of Agriculture published three new calls for tenders of a total budget of around HUF 63 billion based on available rural development funding. The tenders are aimed at supporting food processing and wine-making, organic farming and the restructuring of the small ruminant dairy industry. Organic farmers may count on another call for tenders of HUF 12 billion under the recently announced calls. Subsidy decisions had already been made in this field in 2016, when the Managing Authority awarded support totalling HUF 62 billion to some 2200 applications.