The amount of resources allocated for agricultural and rural development is approximately HUF 1250 billion together with domestic co-funding and by decreasing subsidies for lands over 1200 hectares.

Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development Miklós Kis announced the novelties of the agriculture and rural policy at the 2015 Agrarium conference. Until 2020, the main goal of the government’s rural development policy is to create jobs providing competitive salaries as well as to significantly develop micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises in the agricultural sector. Improving the competitiveness of labour-intensive agricultural sectors, environment-friendly farming in order to reduce the effects of climate-change and operating rural settlements resource-effectively are now considered to be important areas.

Compared to the 2007-2013 programming period, the new, tenderer-friendly procedures adjusted to a common system, the introduction of simplified types of subsidies as well as the simplified tender evaluation procedure all bring about significant changes. The Rural Development Policy is in favour of supporting sectors such as vegetable and fruit production, animal breeding and food industry that create high added value and new workplaces.

Young farmers are the main target group of the programme. The government intends to help professional young farmers with allocated funds, more intensive support and within the frameworks of an individual thematic sub-program: until 2020, EUR 122 million is planned to be made available for young farmers when establishing new agricultural businesses, while EUR 130 million will be allocated for agricultural investments.

It is an important novelty that an allocated fund is intended to foster the improvement of the wine industry and the reinforcement of the winemaking sector’s competitiveness within the frameworks of the programme, that is, they won’t have to compete with other sectors of the food industry for development funds. Deputy Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development and Strategic Affairs Dávid Mezei pointed out that HUF 20 billion will be allocated within the frameworks of this programme.

The preparations of the Rural Development Program are under way: the government is going to include the remarks made at the recently closed social consultation in the final version of the programme. The European Commission is expected to approve the document in May, and the concrete calls for tenders will be announced during the summer.

(Prime Minister's Office)