Hungary’s agriculture ministry and the MBH Bank have launched a project focusing on the protection of species, forests and water with an aim of preserving biodiversity, the agriculture minister said in a keynote speech at the Budapest Climate Summit on Monday.
The programmes will be implemented in national parks, “showing that political and economic players are both committed to nature and environmental protection,” his ministry quoted István Nagy as saying.
Preservation works have restored the natural environment to the original state on 300,000 hectares, Nagy said. The total of environmental investments came to some 90 billion forints (EUR 238m) since 2012, he said. The government sees the protection of “natural capital” and the resources of biodiversity, farmland, climate regulation, pure water and air as a strategic issues, he said.
Government considers ethnic Hungarian farmers strategic allies
The government considers ethnic Hungarian farmers in other countries strategic partners, a ministry of agriculture official told the 12th Cooperation Forum of the Carpathian Basin on Monday.
State secretary Sándor Farkas said that beyond being an annual professional forum, the event was also a “celebration” demonstrating the power of regional cooperation. “We share what we have in order to have more,” he added.
Barna Pál Zsigmond, the state secretary at the ministry of European Union affairs, said cooperation between Hungarians and ethnic Hungarians abroad was also working effectively also in the agricultural sector.
Arpad János Potápi, the state secretary in charge of policies for Hungarian communities, said networks played an important role also in the case of ethnic Hungarian farmers abroad who represent the largest network of the Carpathian Basin. “All efforts must be made to keep Hungarian land in Hungarian ownership and help Hungarian farmers to as much land as possible,” he added.
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Is a disaster coming? Shocking decline of Hungarians living beyond the borders – Click HEREfor more
French retail chain Auchan is now under Hungarian ownership in the country. It is currently the ninth largest retail chain in Hungary. The Hungarian Indotek Group has now acquired a 47% stake in the chain. Group founder-owner Daniel Jellinek believes it is realistic for Auchan to become a top 3 player in five to six years under their ownership.
Auchan under Hungarian ownership
The short-term changes will not affect the operational management of Auchan. However, Indotek will be involved in strategic decisions. Plans include leveraging the synergies between Auchan and Indotek, as well as their real estate experience and retail network, to open new stores in the future, with a particular focus on rural cities, according to a statement to Index.
“Following the signing of the contract, the transaction was notified to the European Union’s Competition Authority in accordance with the legal requirements, as the consolidated turnover of both parties involved in the deal, i.e. Auchan and Indotek Group, justified this,” Indotek told Economx. Jellinek said that the group has entered the retail market in an increasing number of European countries in recent years, with its investments increasingly open to the agri-food sector.
Now 9th, Auchan plans to become 3rd in 5-6 years
A significant element of this opening was the acquisition of a 47% stake in Auchan Magyarország Ltd, a financial investor in the Hungarian department store operator. The Indotek Group also purchased the the company owning 100% of the retail premises in the shopping area of Auchan stores.
“Our plan is to become the 3rd largest player in the market in terms of market share within five to six years, as we have the capital and presence to do so after the transaction closes,”
Jellinek said. By comparison, Lidl is currently the leader in terms of sales, with SPAR and Tesco following. But for now, Auchan is overtaken by Coop, CBA, Aldi, Penny and even Reál. This means that from ninth position, they would race up to third by 2028-2029.
The competition aspects are still to be clarified. Following a notification to the European Union’s Competition Authority, a procedure is pending, which has not yet been notified to the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH). The date for the conclusion of the procedure is still unknown.
In assessing the competition barriers, the GVH must take into account the advantages and disadvantages of the merger, the market structure, competition and the impact of the merger on consumers and the undertakings concerned, Portfolio writes. The further plans and strategies of Indotek and Auchan will become known after the competition law process has been completed.
Hungarians will have a chance to express their opinion about the issue of Ukrainian grain imports in the upcoming National Consultation public opinion survey, the deputy group leader of ruling Fidesz said on Friday.
Following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, Ukraine’sneighbours helped move the country’s grain exports to the poorer regions of the world, Róbert Zsigó said in a statement. But instead of the grain reaching its intended destinations, “the genetically-modified Ukrainian grain that is treated with chemicals banned in the European Union” flooded eastern European markets, causing economic and health-related problems there, he added.
“This, of course, was another issue on which Brussels failed to seek the opinion of the European public, and is to this day intent on continuing this process which is dangerous to European food safety and agriculture,” Zsigo said, adding that the Fidesz-led government will seek the opinion of the Hungarian people on the matter.
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Bee the Solution! initiative chosen as educational program best supporting the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
Bee the Solution! – a Hungarian innovation
It is the first time a Hungarian program received the Global Contribution Award on the Golden World Awards, and became the educational campaign best supporting the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals worldwide. The cross-border Bee the Solution!initiative draws attention to the dangers of the destruction of pollinators and the role of beekeepers. One of the most prestigious awards of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) was presented in Barcelona, the best sustainability campaign was selected from hundreds of entries by the international jury.
Life on Earth is inconceivable without the activities of bees and other pollinating insects. Their contribution is indispensable for the production of seven out of ten foods products, and the value of their work reaches 30 trillion dollars a year. However, due to climate change and the use of agricultural pesticides, pollinators are dying in large numbers worldwide, threatening with a global food disaster. That is why the UN and other international organizations are increasingly taking action to protect biodiversity, including limiting the use of chemicals that are harmful to pollinators.
The Bee the Solution! program is Hungary’s largest pollinator protection program, launched in 2020 by Pressinform communications agency with the cooperation of state and professional organizations, as well as the private sector, with the broad involvement of the Hungarian population. The aim of the program is to draw attention to the mass extinction of bees and other pollinators, to improve the situation of the beekeeping industry, which provides the livelihood of twenty thousand Hungarian families, and encourage domestic honey consumption. The Bee the Solution! program’s message has already reached five million people in recent years.
This initiative was now awarded by the International PR Association: the international professional jury awarded the Global Contribution Award to the Hungarian program out of hundreds of entries. This one of the most prestigious professional recognitions can be awarded to the entry that best promotes the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. According to the rationale, the Bee the Solution! contributes to achieving two global goals: Zero Hunger and Life on Land.
Many supporters behind the program
The award was presented on Friday at the Golden World Awards gala in Barcelona, the most significant global competition in the international PR industry. This year, campaigns were rewarded in 38 categories, and the two most prestigious awards, the Grand Prize and the Global Sustainability Award, were also presented. The significance of the program’s success is further emphasized by the fact that Bee the Solution! has already won several international and domestic awards, received a prize at the IPRA 2021 regional Golden World Awards competition, and was selected as one of the four best programs in Eastern Europe.
One element of the award-winning Bee the Solution! program is Europe’s largest exhibition titled “Buzzing in the Museum,” which opened at the Hungarian Natural History Museum in 2022. The exhibition, which is still open for visitors, uses numerous illustrative tools to introduce visitors to the mysteries of the world of bees and other pollinators, the secrets of honey production, including spectacular animated films, a car-sized bee, and an air-conditioned beekeeping demonstration room. The exhibition has been visited by approximately 150,000 people.
As part of the Bee the Solution! program, Pressinform organized a nationwide kindergarten drawing contest, in which 3-7-year-old children could demonstrate the importance of bees in their lives using their own tools. Every sixth kindergarten in Hungary and forty settlements beyond the borders were represented in the competition, and the children submitted a total of 6,300 drawings.
The Bee the Solution! program is organized by the Pressinform PR agency on behalf of the Pannon Értéktár, the National Hungarian Beekeeping Association, and the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Here is a video of the program:
About previous awards of the Bee the Solution! program
The Bee the Solution! program has won multiple important domestic and international awards. At the IPRA 2021 regional Golden World Awards, it received the main award in the category of supporting urgent action against climate change and its effects, and it was also selected as one of the four best programs in Eastern Europe.
In 2022, at the Apimondia International Apicultural Congress, two of the program’s books were awarded: the cookbook by Magdi Rúzsa and József Vida, “Buzzing in the Kitchen…” received a silver medal. Adél Várszegi’s storybook for preschoolers, “Buzzing along woods and meadows” won a bronze medal.
The Bee the Solution! program won the “Best environmental responsibility” category of the CSR Hungary Award 2021 competition, and was recognized with a special award for environmental issues at the Good Doing CSR Award in 2021.
We wrote HEREthat Hungarian honey was promoted in Strasbourg, while in THISarticle, we summed up how Hungary would like to protect the Hungarian honey.
Hungary supports Chad, one of the poorest and most autocratic states in the world with soldiers, a development centre, and even a model farm. What for? The connection may be Hungary’s developing ties with France.
We wrote in THISarticle that Germany’s new political leadership no longer regards Hungary as a great ally as much as it did during the Merkel era. During their last summit, Scholz and Orbándid not hold a joint press conference and Orbán did not receive a military parade like close friends do. The frozen German-Hungarian political relationship does not mean that Hungary does not serve as the backyard of Germany’s economy, but the ties are slowly shrinking. Therefore, Orbán searched for new allies in Europe and found President Macron. Their developing friendship happens despite the fact that a government-close oligarch’s bank supported the presidential campaign of Marine Le Pen with preferential loans.
Surprising Hungarian help for one of Africa’s poorest, Chad
That developing relationship between France and Hungary might be the cause behind Hungary’s unique support towards an autocratic regime in Africa: Chad.
According to g7.hu, Hungary launched an unprecedented aid program for Chad, one of the most underdeveloped states in the world. 200 Hungarian soldiers will go there this spring out of the 800 soldiers serving abroad (500 in Kosovo, we wrote about them HERE). The Chad mission will precede the Bosnian (160) and the Iraqi (130).
Here is a video of the Hungary helps program in Chad:
Chad mission:
Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, Hungary’s defence minister, said the reason behind the military operation is to help stabilise the autocratic regime. Otherwise, the Sahel region’s destabilisation would continue, and millions of people would leave their homelands.
Furthermore, Hungary will open a humanitarian and development centre in the capital, N’Djamena. Moreover, the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) will create a model farm and a knowledge centre in the country to help local food production. They will test irrigation technologies because drought, lack of water and poverty are everyday challenges. Meanwhile, a ministerial commissioner will be responsible for the Hungarian programs carried out in the Sahel region.
Chad is one of the last French allies in the region. Other countries, also under anti-democratic leadership, already turned to Russia.
Hungary’s agriculture and food industry will see a revival if it can find good solutions to the challenges of the 21st century, the agriculture minister told a special session of parliament’s agricultural committee on Friday.
Speaking ahead of the opening of the National Agriculture and Food Exhibition and Fair (OMEK) at the Hungexpo Budapest Congress and Exhibition Centre, István Nagycalled for cooperation and “joint thinking” on agriculture, saying it was determined largely by factors it could not influence or foresee.
“Europe’s internal market has been upended, and Brussels is failing to protect it while tying production to stringent regulations,” he said.
To protect the interests of Hungarian farmers, the government has banned Ukrainian grain from the country. However, cheap Ukrainian products are still making their way into the EU, undercutting Hungarian exports, he said.
Multinational companies producing honey in Ukraine now have access to EU markets without having to adhere to produce regulations, and so their produce is cheap, he said. Hungary worried because of a possible Ukrainian grain dump – Read more HERE.
Developing irrigation infrastructure
Consumers’ expectations that prices should be kept low while cutting down on pesticides and eliminating mass meat production sites “is hard to fulfil”, he said.
Meanwhile, he said developing seed production was a potential and important breakthrough for Hungary. Developing irrigation infrastructure would also be a key sector in the coming years, and the relevant resources were at hand, he said.
At the same time, water management needs to serve agricultural as well as ecological purposes, he said. That way, “food production will be more secure and the world more liveable,” he said.
European beekeepers were impacted by “several measures of the EU that have a distorting effect on the honey market”, Agriculture Minister István Nagy told an event in Strasbourg on Monday.
Nagy and Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi also presented Hungarian honey manufacturing at the event organised in cooperation with the Hungarian Beekeepers’ Association.
Nagy said a trade agreement with the Mercosur countries of South America, whose quota for tax-free exports had been significantly raised in recent years, as well as “cheap Chinese imports” were at the root of the difficulties of EU beekeepers. He insisted that adulterated honey products mostly came from China, but “the EU fails to apply sanctions.”
Hidvéghi called for regulations “to promote the interests of European honey farmers and to protect customers”.
Hidvéghi said European customers should be encouraged to buy national products, from small producers, rather than “cheap honey of inferior quality”. He suggested that the EU should stipulate more stringent labelling of honey products clearly indicating origin. He called on his peers in the European Parliament to cooperate and prevent “external players from ruling the European markets forcing upon us inferior products,” he said.
He spoke about Hungary’s thousand-year-old honey farming traditions, and noted the country’s being in the forefront of European beekeeping. The European Union is the world’s second largest honey producer, he said, adding that “we must do everything to protect that sector.”
Hungary strives for cooperation with Russia based on mutual respect, even amid the current geopolitical situation, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Facebook on Friday.
Cooperation with Russia in the key strategic areas is crucial for Hungary, the minister said, noting that the country’s energy security would not be guaranteed without maintaining ties with Russia.
Health care and agriculture are two sectors not subject to sanctions, so Hungary continues to support its agricultural and health companies looking to expand on the Russian market, and promotes closes cooperation in health care, too, Szijjártó said.
He praised Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, the head of the economic mixed committee, for his contributions to strengthening bilateral cooperation in areas such as gas supply and the delivery of coronavirus vaccines.
“Sports, geopolitics have nothing to do with each other”
Sports and geopolitics “have nothing to do with each other; at least they shouldn’t,” Szijjártó said after meeting Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin in Moscow on Friday.
“The Hungarian athletes whose decades of hard work were wasted because they could not attend the Los Angeles Olympics would have a lot to say about this,” Szijjártó said on Facebook.
Hungary’s government supports the International Olympic Committee’s efforts aimed at organising a “complete Olympics” in Paris.
Hungary agrees with the position that an athlete’s participation in the Olympics or any other international competition should depend solely on their performance, he added.
“We believe that sports can bring about peace, which is why we support the chance for athletes to compete against each other amid peaceful circumstances,” Szijjártó said. “This isn’t something we just pay lip service to, but we also follow up our words with actions,” he said, noting that the Belarusian national soccer team and the Ukrainian handball team both played their respective European and world championship qualifiers in Hungary.
Hungary’s agricultural ties with Georgia are developing at a pace that will be beneficial for both countries, the agriculture minister said after talks with his Georgian counterpart in Tsinandali on Thursday.
István Nagy and Otar Shamugia looked at unused opportunities for cooperation between the two countries, the ministry said in a statement.
This May, Hungary and Georgia signed a cooperation agreement on growing and breeding seed, fruit and vegetable production, viticulture and honey production, Nagy noted.
The ministers discussed building cooling facilities as well as opportunities for knowledge exchange between Hungarian companies and Georgian farmers, Nagy said.
Hungary’s top quality seed production is worth EUR 500 million a year, he said, and the country is ready to tailor its produce to Georgia’s needs to improve bilateral trade, he said.
Hungary also supports Georgia’s EU integration and is ready for knowledge exchange for a successful bid, he said.
Farmland, water, ecological diversity and forests must be preserved for future generations by the state and all concerned, the agriculture minister said on Thursday.
Attending a roundtable discussion at the Planet Budapest 2023 Sustainability Expo and Experience Programmes, alongside former president Janos Ader, chairman of the board of the Blue Planet Foundation, which organised the event, István Nagy said farmland was a complex ecosystem, and the animals, fungi and bacteria found in it were needed to produce an adequate amount of high-quality food.
Nagy said the number of microorganisms in the soil had slumped to 10 percent in the past 50 years. “As if losing farmland due to urbanisation and industrial development were not enough, the quality of our farmland is also deteriorating,” the minister said.
That is why the soil monitoring system which provides a comprehensive picture of the state of Hungary’s soil, is important, he said.
Due to drastic climate change, it will not be possible to leave agriculturalland bare in the coming years, Nagy said, adding that the soil would have to be covered.
The leaders of the European Union are not protecting the EU’s interests, István Nagy, the agriculture minister, told public radio on Sunday. “We are witnessing multinational big capital’s move to acquire new markets,” he said.
Commenting on the Hungarian government’s decision to maintain and expand the ban on Ukrainian grain produce on its own authority, Nagy said in the interview that the European Union was protecting “so-called Ukrainian farmers” who were “in fact US, Saudi and Dutch companies and investors”.
Hungary proposed that the EU set up a transit fee fund to support land transport of Ukrainiangrain produce so that it may be transported to Arfica and the Arab Peninsula from Croatian and Nordic free ports, he noted. The EU ban expired on Sept 15, and the EC decided against prolonging it, saying that the measures taken since May had eliminated market distortions in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, the beneficiaries of the ban. Contrary to those statements, the European markets still suffer from a glut, he said. Meanwhile, the decision to lift the ban emerged after talks between EC President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, rather than consultations with the ministers of the countries in question, he said.
Hungary’s decision to expand the ban to rapeseed, sunflower seed, flour, cooking oil, honey, eggs and certain meats was a “very brave and tough decision” since such decisions are not normally within the power of member states, he said. Slovakia and Poland joined the decision and Romania is also expected to, while Bulgaria demurred, he added. Meanwhile, Janos Csak, the culture and innovation minister, also gave an interview to public radio on Sunday, and said families raising children today would be key to “ensure pensions for future generations”.
“Certain countries are seeing the birth rate fall, while in others, especially in Africa, the population is growing rapidly, presenting a challenge to every country,” he said. Hungary’s government has been working to turn demographic trends to prevent a “population exchange”, a possible development of those trends, he said. The government has introduced several measures in support of housing families from home purchase subsidies to interest subsidies. It intends to continue this support while taking market trends into account, he said.
It is also working to ensure mothers “are given a real opportunity to decide between work or staying at home” thanks to a programme to build creches and financial support, he said. As a result of the measures, Hungary’s fertility rate was up at 1.59. After the pandemic, it suffered a setback and is now at 1.52. Hungary’s population would reproduce naturally with a rate of 2.1, he said.
Hundreds of farmers protested on Sunday near the Hungary-Ukraine border crossing at Zahony against the European Commission decision to drop the ban on the import of Ukrainian grain.
Around 400 protesters marched and drove tractors along the road leading to the border station on one lane.
Head of the MagoszHungarian farmer union alliance István Jakab, which mounted the protest jointly with the national agricultural chamber, said Hungarian farmers found the commission’s decision not to extend the import ban “unacceptable”, and he praised the Hungarian government for prolonging the ban on grain and extending it to other agricultural produce on its own authority. Magosz has written an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, asking for an EC decision made on a professional basis and according to professional criteria, he noted.
Hungary’s government, on its own authority, has decided to maintain the ban on Ukrainian grain produce and expand it to include rapeseed, sunflower seeds, flour, cooking oil, honey, eggs and some meat products, the agriculture minister said on Saturday.
The European Union ban on certain Ukrainian products expired on Sept. 15, but the moratorium must be maintained to prevent the disruption of markets, István Nagy said in a video posted on Facebook. A glut of cheap Ukrainian products on neighbouring markets could take up warehouse capacity from domestic products in the autumn harvest period, and Hungarian farmers would face even greater difficulties, he said.
At the same time, Ukrainian produce will be delivered to traditional markets in Africa and the Arab Peninsula, to prevent a “famine triggering a wave of migration with unforeseeable consequences,” he said. The agriculture ministry has proposed establishing a fund to aid transit to ensure that Ukrainian products find their way out of Europe, he said.
“Large Ukrainian agricultural companies owned by international corporations are not aiming to trade with third-world countries but to rule European markets, which is going to land the farmers of all member states in serious difficulties,” Nagy said.
European citizens have an interest in products produced under controlled circumstances, he said. “It is sad to see that Brussels can’t see that and supports Ukrainian producers rather than European farmers,” he said. “We will continue to protect the interests of Hungarian farmers,” he added.
The government will protect the interests of Hungarian farmers and after Brussels decided not to maintain the import ban on Ukraine agricultural produce, Hungary will extend the ban on the import of Ukrainian grain on its own national authority and expand it to more products, Minister of Agriculture István Nagy said on Friday.
The ministry cited Nagy saying that the EUban on the import of certain Ukraineagricultural products expires at midnight. The moratorium must be maintained in order to prevent market disruptions, Nagy said. If cheap Ukrainian imports again swamped the markets of EU countries neighbouring Ukraine, there will not be enough storage capacity for the autumn harvest and it will be impossible to sell products in the domestic market, he added. As a result, farmers would have to face even greater difficulties which must not be allowed to happen, the minister said.
“We will protect the interests of Hungarian farmers under any circumstances and by all means,” Nagy said, adding that Hungary would continue to allow the transit of Ukrainian products through its territory.
Hungary allowing grain deliveries to Africa but against ruining Hungarian farmers
Hungary is still allowing Ukrainian grain to be delivered to Africa, “but we won’t allow Hungarian farmers to be ruined”, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said on Facebook on Friday. Szijjártó accused the European Union and Kyiv of misleading the European public on the Ukrainian issue of grain exports. He noted that central European countries had opened up transit routes to ensure that Ukrainian grain reached seaports for transport to Africa.
The aim, however, wasn’t to flood central European countries with Ukrainian grain, he said. “We won’t allow Hungarian farmers to be ruined,” he wrote. “The deceitful propaganda in Brussels and Kyiv won’t stop us from doing this,” he wrote, referring to Hungary’s declaration that it will extend the export ban on its own national authority if the EU refuses to do so.
Agriculture Minister István Nagy met his Slovak counterpart, JozefBíreš, in Bratislava on Tuesday, and they agreed that the European Union ban on certain Ukrainian grain products should be maintained at least until the end of 2023, the ministry said.
The European Union’s ban on the import of certain Ukrainian grain products, introduced earlier this year to protect the markets of neighbouring countries from a glut, will expire on 15 September.
“Ukrainian grain must be channelled back to its original markets, and so our primary goal continues to be to ease transit” to vulnerable countries, István Nagy said. Hungary has earmarked resources to increase railway capacities near the Ukrainian border, he said.
Slovakia is facing challenges similar to those of Hungary, Nagy said. On the cusp of the sunflower and sweetcorn harvest, warehouses are full and grain markets are “at a standstill”, he said.
High transport costs are one of the main causes of the problem, he said. “We continue to propose a progressive, EU-financed transport system along with a prolonged ban” on Ukrainian products, he said.
Agriculture Minister István Nagy is scheduled on Tuesday to meet his Slovak, Bulgarian and Romanian counterparts to discuss the extension of the ban on Ukrainian grain imports into the EU.
The European Union‘s ban on the import of certain Ukrainian grain products, introduced earlier this year to protect the markets of neighbouring countries from a glut, will expire on Sept 15, Nagy noted on Facebook. The ban must be extended at least until year-end, he said. “We can only protect the interests of farmers together,” he said.
At the separate meetings in Sofia, Bratislava and Bucharest, he said he will “talk to the colleagues who, together with Hungary, made the brave decision to close their borders to protect farmers, thus pushing Brussels to issue a common EU regulation,” he said. “What’s going to happen on September 16? That’s what I’m going to discuss with my Romanian, Bulgarian and Bratislava colleagues,” he said.
Later on Tuesday, Nagy met his Romanian counterpart, Florin-Ionut Barbu, in Bucharest. Nagy said that both countries allowed the transport of Ukrainian grain across their territory “because we don’t want to harm Ukraine, but we want to preserve the competitiveness of our farmers.” “We must work to deliver Ukrainian grain to ports as soon as possible so it can find its way to the traditional markets in north Africa and the Middle East,” he said.
At his talks with Kiril Vatev, his Bulgarian counterpart, in Sofia, Nagy highlighted the need for joint action against the glut of Ukrainian grain and a joint long-term solution to market disruptions.
“There is no doubt that we must continue to support the export of Ukraine’s agricultural products, especially following the collapse of Black Sea shipping,” the agriculture ministry cited Nagy as saying.
The three biggest challenges faced by the countries most affected by the grain imports are finishing the harvest, storing the products and selling them at good prices, he said.
Bulgaria’s situation is made more difficult by the fact that its storages are full of domestic sunflower seed, yet demand for the much cheaper Ukrainian grain is higher in the markets, the minister added.
The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity entered force 20 years ago on Monday, the ministry of agriculture said.
The protocol concerns the transboundary movement and handling of living, genetically modified organisms and Hungary joined the agreement ratified by 173 countries in 2004, the ministry said in a statement on Monday. Hungary’s dedication to its GMO free status is reflected by the fact that it is also enshrined in the new constitution in force since 2012, the statement added.
Hungary opposes a recent proposal made in Brussels under which the European Commission would discontinue member states’ right of self-determination and loosen some restrictions for plants resulting from newer gene-editing technology and cancel certain labelling requirements, the ministrysaid.
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Poor quality but cheap Chinese pepper endangershigh-quality Hungarian products
The Hungarian pepper producers have only one chance to survive and beat the Chinese competitors: they must distinguish themselves on the market because they cannot go below the Chinese prices.
According to index.hu, that is what Zsolt Feldman, Hungary’s secretary of state responsible for agriculture and development, said on the 12th Hungarian Pepper Day in Hajós, Bács-Kiskun County. He added that producers should modify their product descriptions and the production rules to maintain high quality.
Feldman said Chinese pepper flooded the European markets thanks to their low prices. However, the Hungarian product is of higher quality, so it needs to be distinguished from its Far Eastern competitor.
Pepper growers should not have any illusion that the market environment they were accustomed to 20 years ago will ever return. Consumer trends have changed, and the era of mass production is over. Therefore, producers should focus on the protection of provenance, pepper procession, post-harvest investments, developments reducing weather risks and options for direct marketing.
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Have you tried the Hungarian Wax Pepper? – Read more HERE
Moreover, professionals will be able to create their own interest-protection organisations. Thus, they could protect the Kalocsai and Szegedi pepper brands. The government promised help for producers who modernise their processes and aim to continue to compete with high-quality green and red peppers.
Furthermore, the government will announce the relevant applications this autumn. It is understood that they may support different subprocesses like drying, milling and wrapping technologies. As a result, Hungarian-grown Szegedi or Kalocsai peppers will be easy to differentiate from their lower-quality Chinese competitors, and locals may buy more Hungarian products.
