LMP Calls On PM To Stop Radical Developments Concerning Kishantos Organic Farm

(MTI) – The green LMP party called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban in an open letter on Sunday to intervene and prevent radical developments in a dispute around an organic farm in Kishantos in central Hungary.

In the letter, LMP co-chair Bernadett Szel wrote that the dispute had taken a violent turn last week, when new leaseholders started ploughing up the state-owned plots and one of the protesting activists was assaulted.

Szel insisted that the police had neglected their obligations and “did nothing” to stop the illegal destruction of the original leaseholders’ crops.

The new leaseholders started to plough up the fields at Kishantos on April 12. The old farmers, members of the Kishantos Rural Development Centre, however, said that the newcomers were not “legally in possession” of the area, as there are several legal disputes still underway.

Opposition politicians and activists have protested against the breakup of the organic farm in Kishantos ever since the leaseholders of the Kishantos Centre refused to hand over the area to the state land manager by the deadline at the end of October 2013 and filed a complaint with the rural development minister over the termination of their lease.

The Kishantos Rural Development Centre was set up under an agreement between the Hungarian and German governments 15 years ago. It operated on 452 hectares of state-owned land and produced the highest-grade organic seeds, as well as offering courses to farmers and carrying out agricultural research.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters