Hungary Newsflash, Week 35, 2022
Drought hits aquaculture and fisheries, the reasons behind the shrinking of farmlands, projections for price increases for poultry meat, and the state of affairs in Hungary's irrigation systems - the week in Hungarian agriculture
Aquaculture and fisheries also hit hard by drought
Press sources reported on Tuesday that the majority of fisheries in Hungary are suffering from the ongoing drought.
There are more than 2200 registered bodies of water used in aquaculture in the country and several hundred fishponds. Two-thirds of these aquaculture systems have been hit by the drought, ten percent are in critical condition. At 120 aquafarms the fish stock completely died off due to desiccation, and at least one hundred other fishponds are at risk of facing the same fate due to serious water shortages and a consequent drop in water quality.
In Transdanubia, Western Hungary, the situation is especially grave because due to a lack of surface rivers and canals, withholding water is not an option. In the Great Plains, extracting water from the River Tisza, and the Körös system (the River Körös, and its two sources, the Fehér-Körös and Fekete-Körös) can aid in replenishing the water in fisheries to an extent, however, due to skyrocketing energy prices as well as the price of water, this raises input costs considerably. To make the situation worse, input costs have already increased due to higher feed and labor prices in the sector. Due to these issues, the volume of fish production, as well as the profitability of the sector in Hungary has drastically decreased. (aquaculture in Hungary article link)
Farmlands in Hungary shrinking
Based on new data by the news agency MTI as well as the governmentally-run company MTVA, the news portal Agrárszektor writes that the amount of land used in agriculture in Hungary has considerably decreased in the past twelve years.
Out of the 5.08 million hectares of farmland used for agricultural production in the country in 2022, by far the largest portion, 81.93% is used in arable farming. 15.18% is grassland, 1.65% is the share of fruit orchards, vineyards make up 1.19% and 0.06% in total is used by kitchen gardens.
Arable lands mostly stayed the same in total size in the past decade, except for a brief downturn in 2019. The size of arable farmland is improving, however, the size of fruit orchards and vineyards have been declining for years.
In the case of fruit orchards, the decline that started in 2019 was 8%, from 94.4 thousand ha to 86.6 thousand, with a further drop of 2.8 thousand ha by 2021. Due to the fact that many orchards are old and unmodernized, FruitVeB, the country’s leading fruit and vegetable producing alliance is of the opinion that within five years, 30-50% of Hungary’s fruit producing enterprises, as well as one-third of the country’s fruit orchards will disappear.
The number of vineyards has been going down since the beginning of the last decade, between 2010 and 2022, their total area dropped by 27%. In the case of grasslands, the total area dropped by around 60 thousand ha to 735 thousand between 2019 and 2020, however, it has been increasing since.
The reasons for the decline of fruit orchards and vineyards include climate change and soil degradation, the aging of orchards and the increasing average age of farmers.
Poultry meat: Prices expected to increase by one-third this year
Before the end of the year, the prices of poultry meat can be expected to increase by as high as 30-35%, stated an industry stakeholder to the news portal Index.hu.
Bárány László, owner of the Master Good group, added in his interview that the shrinking of the sector is also a realistic outcome of the troubles that poultry meat production is going through right now.
Mr. Bárány added that current consumer prices on the market are shaped by the increase of costs in the industry in 2021, however, he also believes that rising energy prices will make a price will be needed for producers and processing companies to stay afloat.
„In the case of fresh and frozen meat products, the industry will be forced to raise prices in two steps,” Mr. Bárány further elaborated. Stakeholders have already signaled their plan to increase their prices by 20-25% last week, and a further 10-15% increase can be expected in the end of fall or beginning of winter.
According to Mr. Bárány, in August, 2020, a price of €061/kg for live animals was profitable, the current price is €1.09-€1.12 per kilogram, and this price does not even reflect this year’s increase in feed and energy costs, meaning that by January, the price of live animals might reach €1.46/kg.
The state of irrigation in Hungary
A new analysis of the current state of irrigation systems used in agriculture in Hungary published by Magyar Mezégazdaság highlighted the importance of increasing the size irrogated farmland.
One key figure, the total size of irrigated land, has decreased in the past twenty-two years. The total area licensed for water usage for irrigation has gone down in twenty years, from 235.5 thousand ha to 198.1 thousand ha in 2022, a net decrease of 15.1%. The effective total irrigated area was 125.3 thousand ha in 2000, this figure was 119.3 thousand ha in 2022. 08. 31.
There have been fluctuations in both figures, most notably, the effective area size reached almost as low as 50 thousand ha in 2010, and the annual figures show a consistently higher number in the 2010s decade, around 100 thousand ha every year. According to the analysis, much of this fluctuation was caused by changes in the regulative environment and climate factors.
The amount of water used for irrigation also changed, from a total of 215.8 million m3 in 2000 to 140.56 million m3 in 2022, which is a net 34.8% decrease in total numbers, however this figure is not directly proportional to the size of irrigated land as the density of irrigation also decreased. The average amount of water used per hectare was between 1500-200 m3 in 2000, however, it was between 1000 and 1500 m3 in 2022.
The analysis also includes annual figures from 2021 and these show increases in irrigation compared to the previous year. The total area of irrigated land had increased in 2021 by 10% and the volume of water used also increased by 35.3% in a year, with an average per hectare water usage of 1393 m3. 88% of the water used in irrigation in 2021 came from surface waters, while 12% was extracted from underground sources. Irrigation also increased yields, especially for maize, sunflower, soya beans, peas, potatoes, apricots, apples and sour cherries.