Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Hungary’s agricultural sector is vital to the country’s national self-esteem.
During a book presentation for “Everything for the Future of Rural Hungary”, co-authored by former Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas, the prime minister said a look at the past decades reveals that rural Hungary “was among the biggest losers” when it came to the distribution of resources, developments, investments and the drafting of modern regulations.
PM Orbán said Fazekas had been appointed minister in 2010 with the task of “getting the countryside back on its feet”. Since then, the government has protected Hungarian farmland and provided significant opportunities for the agricultural sector.
According to MTI, the prime minister said people living in the countryside oversee their own plots which have clear borders and assume responsibility for the way and quality of life on that land. PM Orbán said it was this sense of responsibility that explained why rural Hungarians “have given so many good leaders to Hungarian politics”.
PM Orbán also noted that in the 1990s much of the country’s political discourse was focused on the future of agriculture. The sector needed predictability and the issue around farmlands needed to be settled. The matter was ultimately settled by allocating 80 percent of farmland to small and medium-sized holdings and 20 percent to large landowners.
The prime minister said the government’s job was to allocate the necessary resources and technologies, devote enough attention and guarantee the proper legal environment to the countryside and farmers.
Photo credit: MTI